Acetonitrile

About This Product

Acetonitrile, also called methyl cyanide or ethanenitrile, has the formula C2H3N and CAS number 75-05-8. It is a clear, colourless liquid boiling at about 82 °C, fully miscible with water and with most organic solvents, and it is the simplest organic nitrile. Almost all of the world's acetonitrile is not made on purpose. It is recovered as a co-product of acrylonitrile manufacture by propylene ammoxidation, so its supply rises and falls with acrylonitrile plant rates rather than with demand for the solvent itself, and that origin also explains the specification. The impurities that matter are the ones the process leaves behind: acrylonitrile, hydrogen cyanide, ammonia and acetone, each held here to a limit in mg/kg, alongside water at 0.03 percent maximum. Its high dielectric constant and lack of acidic protons make it a favoured medium for reactions involving charged intermediates, and because it is miscible with water yet boils low it is easily stripped from a product. It is also the extractive distillation solvent used to separate butadiene from C4 hydrocarbon streams. It is used as a reaction and crystallisation solvent in pharmaceutical synthesis, in producing orthoacetates and pyrimidine intermediates for sulfonylurea herbicides, in butadiene extraction and as a general polar aprotic process solvent. Bio Green Chem supplies acetonitrile at 99.9 percent minimum to specification on water, acidity, colour, density, total cyanide, ammonia, acetone, acrylonitrile, heavy components and copper, in 160 kg drums or ISO tanks. It is a highly flammable liquid, harmful by inhalation, skin contact and ingestion; handle to the safety data sheet.