Methacrylic acid (MAA) and its methyl ester methyl methacrylate (MMA) are high-volume commodity chemicals serving as building blocks for various polymers widely used in construction, automobile, appliances and coating industries. The 2005 US MAA/MMA production was ~1.8 billion pounds. Since 1930s, MAA/MMA has been produced in the US using the conventional Acetone Cyanohydrin (ACH) process, which requires acetone and hydrogen cyanide (HCN) as the feedstocks. The production of 1 ton of MAA requires at least 0.31 ton HCN. The ACH process further requires using a large quantity of concentrated H2SO4 as solvent and catalyst. The production of each ton of MAA further requires using 1.6 tons of concentrated H2SO4, while generates 1.2 tons of ammonium bisulfate requiring disposal. In 2005 alone, the US production of 1.82 billion pounds of MAA/MMA a) consumed 558+ million pounds of HCN, b) used/regenerated ~2.88 billion pounds of concentrated H2SO4; c) generated/disposed ~2.16 billion pounds of ammonium bisulfate.

EverNu has developed a patent-pending catalyst and process which uses isobutane (and air) as the feedstock for the production of MAA. Using isobutane as the feedstock has three major benefits. It offers significant economical benefit since isobutane cost is only a fraction of that of acetone and HCN. It further offers tens of trillion Btu of energy benefit per year, since isobutane partial oxidation is isothermic and the need to recycle H2SO4 is eliminated. The environmental benefit is enormous and it includes: a) completely eliminating the use of large quantities of HCN and H2SO4, b) avoiding the generation/disposal of the toxic/corrosive wastes relating to the use of HCN and H2SO4; and c) use of non-toxic feedstock isobutane is inherently much safer with regards to workers' exposure and accident potential. Further, isobutane can be obtained from renewable sources in the future, as indicated by some recent research.