The Formation of Hydrogen-Cyanide During Methacrylonitrile Pyrolysis

This short note describes studies of the pyrolysis of methacrylonitrile over a wide range of temperatures under flowing nitrogen at atmospheric pressure. Hydrogen cyanide was not found to be a primary product, but several organic nitriles are formed which decompose at higher temperature (> 1100 K) to produce hydrogen cyanide almost quantitatively.