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In a development that could eventually put a large swath of the polymers world on a low-carbon footing, Bayer spin-off Covestro has demonstrated in the lab a process for making the polyurethane precursor aniline from sugar instead of petrochemical raw materials. Aniline is one of the most important chemical building blocks. Nearly 5 million metric tons of it is used globally, mostly to make the polyurethane raw material methylene diphenyl diisocyanate. Aniline is also used to manufacture dyes, pigments, rubber processing chemicals, and agricultural chemicals. In the conventional route to aniline, benzene is nitrated with nitric acid and then hydrogenated into aniline. Historically, aniline has also been made by reacting phenol and ammonia. Covestro hasn’t completely taken the wraps off its process. The company tells C&EN that a microorganism combines sugar and ammonia into an unnamed intermediate. A chemical catalyst then converts this molecule into aniline, resulting in a product
Alex Tullo (Mon,) studied this question.