High purity hcn from acrylonitrile co-production

A process for co-manufacture of ACRN and HCN comprising:

• (a) operating an ACRN process and a HCN process in parallel in separate reactor systems to co-produce an ACRN reactor product stream and a HCN reactor product stream comprising HCN, respectively, wherein the HCN is produced from reaction of methane, ammonia, and oxygen or from methane and ammonia;
• (b) quenching the co-produced ACRN reactor product stream and the HCN reactor product stream in a quench column with a first acid stream at pH of 7.0 or less to produce a quenched combined reactor product stream and recovering a first water purge from the quench column;
• (c) in a single recovery/purification system, feeding the quenched combined reactor product stream comprising the quenched HCN reactor product stream and the quenched ACRN reactor product stream to an absorber column with water, to produce a combined product stream, having a weight ratio of ACRN to HCN of about 12 to 1 or less;
• (d) treating the combined product stream sequentially in a recovery column, a decanter having an aqueous layer and an organic layer, and a heads column, wherein pH is controlled by addition of a second acid at pH of 7.0 or less in the absorber column and the recovery column, and at pH less than 4.5 in the decanter and heads column;
• and
• (e) separately treating the first water purge to recover ammonium salt and/or ammonia.