The Chemical World This Week
U.K. DISASTER HURTS CAPROLACTAM SUPPLY wrong at Flixborough. Leslie U.S., where Nipro already has cusGranger, Nypro's chairman, thinks tomers on allocation. Although Mr. the explosion might have involved White agrees that sending caprothe highly explosive initial air-oxi- lactam to Europe would present dation step, in which cyclohexane problems, he adds that the raw mais converted to cyclohexanone. But terials pinch, which has cut into nobody can explain how the explo- production, seems to be easing. sion and fire could have spread The two other U.S. producers of throughout the entire plant in a few caprolactam, Allied Chemical at seconds unless a conjunction of cir- Hopewell, Va., and Dow Badische cumstances led to the disaster. The at Freeport, Tex., both have curonly part of the plant still intact, rent capacities about double that of though badly damaged, is that in Nipro. Both also are expanding which cyclohexanone is converted their plants. Allied's output is now to caprolactam by the HPO pro- entirely for captive use. One U.S. cess. That leads one DSM observer market observer, however, thinks to guess that that part of the oper- DSM will be able to scrape up ation didn't trigger the accident. enough production from the other He also points out that the HPO worldwide plants in which it has an process has been used by Japan's interest to meet the needs of the Ube Industries without any prob- British market. lems for the past two years or so. British nylon 6 makers are still uncertain about how severely they EPA asks emission will be affected by the sudden cutoff of a major portion of their feed- data on vinyl chloride stock. The U.K. consumes 5000 metric tons of nylon 6 polymer an- The Environmental Protection nually for plastics production. Agency has requested 27 U.S. Courtaulds and British Enkalon, chemical companies that make the two major producers of nylon 6 vinyl chloride and polyvinyl chlofibers, between them make about ride to provide the agency with 116 million pounds of that product, "process, emission, and air quality and plant expansions now under data" on 49 plants by June 14. In letters to manufacturers dated way should raise their combined capacity to about 140 million May 30, EPA says it wants the information "for possible use in the pounds per year in 1975. The British blast could affect development of air pollution control U.S. caprolactam supplies. Nipro standards for vinyl chloride in acvice president Clem White says cordance with the Clean Air Act of DSM in the Netherlands is looking 1970." At present, no federal air into the possibility of shipping cap- pollution control standards exist for rolactam from the U.S. to the U.K. vinyl chloride. Meanwhile, EPA has been taking "We would certainly exert every effort to be helpful to customers of samples for the past month near 14 Nypro in Great Britain," he tells plants to determine amounts of the gas present in ambient air. Public C&EN. Such help could worsen the cur- disclosure of EPA's findings is imrent caprolactam shortage in the minent. These findings probably will show existing vinyl chloride Financial loss from blast at Nypro capylactam works may reach $100 million ambient air levels near plants to be higher than the levels the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has proposed for inside plants. A likely outcome of all this is that EPA will set an air quality standard near to or identical with the OSHA in-plant standard of "no detectable level." EPA also wants ambient air quality data collected by the manufacturers near 14 vinyl chloride and 35 PVC plants. Further, EPA wants the manufacturers to identify in each of their plants "emission
Tragedy struck Nypro's caprolactam operations at Flixborough in the U.K. June 1, when an explosion almost completely demolished production units there, resulting in a loss of 28 lives. Fire raged out of control for several days and many houses near the site were damaged. Financial losses may be as high as $100 million. Nypro, owned 55% by DSM of the Netherlands and 45% by the U.K.'s National Coal Board, had a total annual caprolactam capacity of nearly 75,000 metric tons. Because the company was the only British producer of the product, the blast will seriously affect the country's nylon 6 plastics and fibers industries. All raw material for nylon 6 now will have to be imported, and caprolactam supplies are already tight the world over. The accident also will affect fertilizer supplies; about 190,000 metric tons per year of by-product ammonium sulfate were produced in the Flixborough operation. Indications are that Nypro will rebuild, but a new plant is not likely to be completed for at least two years. Two caprolactam units were located at Flixborough. The newest one, a 50,000 metric-ton-per-year plant costing about $60 million, started up less than a year ago (C&EN, July 23, 1973, page 7). It was based on an improved process, tradenamed HPO (for hydroxylamine phosphate oxime), developed by DSM's engineering subsidiary, Stamicarbon. DSM's wholly owned U.S. subsidiary, Nipro, Inc., has a 75,000 metric-ton-per-year caprolactam plant at Augusta, Ga., which uses the HPO process. It will double capacity there by late 1976 or early 1977. It's still not clear what went
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