What is butadiene gas?

butadiene is an organic compound with the molecular formula C4H6 with a melting point of -108.9 ° C and a boiling point of -4 ° C, which is a colorless gas at room temperature or a liquid at refrigerator temperature.

Caventou separated butadienes from pyrolysis of amyl alcohol, and in 1886 Henry Edward Armstrong identified this hydrocarbon as butadiene by the decomposition of petroleum gas. In 1910, Russian chemist Sergei Lebedov polymerized to obtain a substance with rubber-like properties.

However, the polymer was so soft that it could not be replaced instead of natural rubber in many applications, especially car tires, until the years leading up to World War II, when countries such as Britain cut off rubber exports to Germany  to make natural tires.

They tried to replace it, and finally in 1929, the German Scientist: Walter Booth made a styrene butadiene copolymer that could be used in car tires. In the 1940s, the US government established several factories in California, Toledo, Burger, Texas, and Ohio to produce synthetic rubber.

Production of butadiene from ethylene and ethanol

Until 2017, in some parts of the world, including South America, Eastern Europe, China and India, ethanol was used to produce butadiene, but because production was low compared to ethylene, it stopped and now more than 95% of butadienes is separated by fractions Oil steam crackers are produced during the production of ethylene.

Butadienes is a by-product of the process of producing ethylene and other alkenes, so that aliphatic hydrocarbons, when mixed with steam and heated for a very short time (aliphatic hydrocarbons), release hydrogen from the unburned mixture.

The amount of butadienes produced depends on the hydrocarbons used as feed. Light feeds, such as ethane, produce mostly ethylene when cracked, but heavier feeds produce heavier alkenes, butadienes, and aromatic hydrocarbons. also be produced by the dehydrogenation catalyst of natural butanes.

Applications of butadiene

In the industrial trend, this is used for the polymerization reaction, for example with maleic anhydride to obtain tetrahydrophthalic anhydride or with styrene monomer to produce carboxylated butadiene styrene latex.

also this is an important monomer in the production of polymers such as polybutadiene, styrene-butadiene and butadiene-methyl styrene rubber, nitrile rubber, butadiene-methyl vinyl pyridine rubber and so on.

In addition, butadienes is used in industry to produce synthetic latex, adipodinitrile, and sebacic acid, but is most commonly used in the rubber industry.

SBR Latex – Styrene Butadiene Rubber

The effect of butadienes on the human body and the environment

Prolonged exposure is associated with cardiovascular disease, leukemia, and other cancers. Animal studies have shown that women exposed are more sensitive to the carcinogenic effects of men, which may be due to the effects of estrogen receptors. Butadienes often affects the blood, brain, eyes, heart, kidneys, lungs, nose and throat.