Cumene Overview Transcript
Cumene is a colourless liquid with a distinctive aromatic odour; it is soluble in alcohol and ether but not in water.
Cumene is manufactured via benzene and propylene. The aromatic hydrocarbon is used mostly for the manufacture of phenol and acetone as well as alpha-methyl-styrene or AMS.
It is also utilised as a solvent, and sometimes it’s used as an additive for jet fuel and for textile dies.
But with 98% of cumene going into phenol and acetone production, the market is tied very closely to phenol’s derivatives, particularly bisphenol A or BPA and phenolic resins.
Demand is for cumene is tied to the automotive, transportation, home construction through its derivative phenol. Consequently with these sectors either slow or in decline, cumene’s growth is projected to be just barely 1%