Greener route to widely used industrial material

Scientists from Cardiff University have taken a step towards a greener, more sustainable way of creating a plastic material found in a range of items from toothbrushes and guitar strings to medical implants, construction materials and car parts. In a new paper published today , the team report a brand-new method of creating cyclohexanone oxime - a pre-cursor to the plastic material Nylon-6 which is a key construction material used in the automotive, aircraft, electronic, clothing and medical industries. It is estimated that global production of Nylon-6 is expected to reach around 9m tonnes a year by 2024, prompting scientists to search for greener and more sustainable ways of producing cyclohexanone oxime. Currently, cyclohexanone oxime is produced industrially through a process involving hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), ammonia (NH3) and a catalyst called titanosilicate-1 (TS-1). The H2O2 used in this chemical process, as well as many others, is produced elsewhere and needs to be shipped in before it can be used in the chemical reaction. This is a costly and carbon-intensive process that also necessitates the shipping of highly concentrated H2O2 to the end-user prior to dilution, which effectively wastes the large amounts of energy used during concentration. Similarly, the stabilising agents often used to increase the shelf-life of H2O2 can limit reactor lifetime and often they need to be removed before arriving at a final product, leading to further economic and environmental costs.