Published April 1990
In mid 1988, Du Pont completed its first production run of nylon 12,12 resin. The resin is polymerized from 1,12-dodecanedioic acid (DDA) and dodecamethylenediamine (DMDA) at the company's special polymer facilities at Chattanooga, TN, and Kingston, Ontario, and compounded in Kingston and Maitland, Ontario, Canada. The resin is commercially available in small trial amounts at the present time. However, the company estimates future demand for nylon 12,12 resin to be about 23,000 t/yr (51 million Ib/yr).
In this review, we present the basic chemistry for making nylon 12,12 resin precursors from 1,3-butadiene, and the economics of the two precursor plants, namely a 22,200 t/yr (49 million Ib/yr) plant manufacturing DDA from 1,3-butadiene and a 10,000 t/yr (22 million Ib/yr) plant manufacturing DMDA from DDA. Also presented are production costs for nylon 12,12 resin at 20,000 t/yr (44 million Ib/yr) production capacity, and an economic comparison of nylon 12,12 resin with nylon 6,6 and nylon 6,12 resins.
SRI concludes that, relative to nylon 6,6 resin, the product values of nylon 6,12 and nylon 12,12 resins are more expensive than the product value of nylon 6,6 resin.
