TECHNOLOGY FOR THE PRODUCTION OF N-METHYL-PYRROLIDONE

PROCESS FEATURES

CONSER offers a simple, competitive process for production of n-methyl-pyrrolidone (NMP) from gammabutyrolactone (GBL) and monomethylamine (MMA).
The process uses a continuous reaction system, yielding very high level of conversion of GBL, assuring an NMP product meeting the highest quality standards.
In an alternative method of production ammonia and methanol can be used as feedstocks in place of MMA.

REFERENCES

Company	Location	Capacity T/y
EURODIOL	Belgium	20000

PROCESS DESCRIPTION

The NMP technology offered by CONSER is based on the following major steps:

Reaction

NMP is synthetized by the reaction of GBL with MMA. The reaction occurs in two steps, in liquid phase, at moderately high pressure and temperature and without any catalyst.
A slight excess of MMA over the stoichiometric value is necessary to obtain almost complete conversion of GBL.

Distillation

The effluent of reaction, after flashing at reduced pressure is transfered to a fractionation system including:

MMA recovery column
Dehydration column
NMP column