Acrylonitrile is currently made from fossil resources. We investigated the synthesis of acrylonitrile from propionic acid in only two steps, which opens up a new route to acrylonitrile based on propionic acid obtained by fermentation. Propionic acid was initially converted to propionitrile with NH₃ at 400 °C. Zeolite HY allows for >99% selectivity at 98% conversion. However, coking led to deactivation after 180 min on stream. The dehydrogenation of propionitrile to acrylonitrile was catalyzed by SnO/SiO₂. The selectivity was 71% at 22% conversion, which gives already after first experiments an overall selectivity for acrylonitrile production from propionic acid of 71%.

丙烯腈目前由化石资源制成。我们仅用两个步骤就研究了由丙酸合成丙烯腈的方法，这为通过发酵获得的丙酸开辟了一条通往丙烯腈的新途径。丙酸最初在400°C下用NH ₃转化为丙腈。沸石H Y在98％的转化率下可实现> 99％的选择性。但是，焦化导致在运行180分钟后失活。SnO / SiO ₂催化丙腈脱氢制丙烯腈。在22％的转化率下，选择性为71％，这在首次实验后已经使由丙酸生产丙烯腈的总选择性为71％。