PROCESS FOR PURIFYING AMINOCAPRONITRILE

1 . A process for converting caprolactam to aminocapronitrile, the process comprising:

contacting a caprolactam feed stream with ammonia to produce a first crude product stream;

separating the first crude product stream via a continuous process to produce an intermediate product stream comprising aminocapronitrile and a recovery stream comprising ammonia, caprolactam, or a combination thereof; and

purifying the intermediate product stream to produce a purified product stream comprising greater than 95 wt % aminocapronitrile.

2 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the continuous process comprises continuous distillation.

3 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the separating is conducted at a pressure ranging from 0.1 kPa to 100 kPa.

4 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the temperature at the bottom of the one or more distillation columns during the separating ranges from 150° C. to 180° C.

5 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the reflux ratio during the separating ranges from 1:1 to 10:1.

6 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the purifying comprises separating the intermediate product stream to produce a first purified product stream and a crude column bottoms.

7 . The process of claim 6 , wherein the first purified product stream comprises greater than 95 wt. % aminocapronitrile and less than 5 wt. % of impurities comprising cyclohexanone, cyclohexenone, n-hexanenitrile, 5-hexenenitrile, aminocaproic acid, caprolactam, caprolactam dimers caprolactam oligomers, or n-phenylacetamide, or combinations thereof.

8 . The process of claim 6 , further comprising separating the first purified product stream to form a second purified product stream comprising greater than 95 wt % aminocapronitrile, preferably greater than 99 wt % aminocapronitrile.

9 . The process of claim 6 , further comprising separating the crude column bottoms to produce a distillate caprolactam recycle stream comprising greater than 95 wt % caprolactam and heavy byproducts stream containing organic impurities and less than 10 wt % caprolactam.

10 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the caprolactam feed stream comprises less than 99 wt. % caprolactam and greater than 1 wt. % impurities.

11 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the contacting is conducted in a reactor, preferably a fixed bed reactor.

12 . A process for converting caprolactam to aminocapronitrile, the process comprising:

contacting a caprolactam feed stream with ammonia to produce a first crude product stream;

separating the first crude product stream via continuous distillation in one or more columns at a pressure less than 100 kPa to produce an intermediate product stream comprising ACN and a caprolactam recovery stream comprising caprolactam; and

purifying the intermediate product stream to produce a purified product stream comprising greater than 98 wt % aminocapronitrile.

13 . The process of claim 12 , wherein the residence time in any one column is less than 450 minutes.

14 . The process of claim 13 , wherein the residence time in any one column is less than 180 minutes.

15 . The process of claim 12 , wherein the reflux ratio during the separating ranges from 1:1 to 10:1.

16 . The process of claim 15 , wherein the reflux ratio during the separating ranges from 1:1 to 3:1.

17 . The process of claim 12 , wherein the temperature at the bottom of the distillation column bottom temperature during the separating ranges from 150° C. to 180° C.

18 . The process of claim 12 , wherein the recovery of aminocapronitrile in the intermediate product stream is greater than 70%.

19 . The process of claim 12 , wherein the recovery of caprolactam in the caprolactam recovery stream is greater than 90%.

20 . The process of claim 12 , wherein the contacting comprises a feed rate ranging from 1 klb/hr to 250 klb/hr.