Published October 1988
Mitsubishi Petrochemical recently announced the development of a new process for Producing piperidine from furfural. The process involves a catalytic reductive amination of furfural to tetrahydrofurfurylamine, which undergoes catalytic hydrogenolysis to form piperidine. A suspension of cobalt catalyst is used in both steps of the process. At present, piperidine is Industrially manufactured by catalytic hydrogenation of pyridine.
SRI presents a review of the Mitsubishi Petrochemical process and an economic evaluation of the new piperidine process. SRI concludes that the new process, as presented in this review, is commercially viable in the United States only if the market demand becomes large enough to justify the necessary plant size. However, economics of scale for the conventional process. because of its simplicity, might preclude competition even in large plants.
