Abstract A study of the hydrolysis of adiponitrile (ADN) was performed in subcritical water to research the dependence on experimental conditions. An L 25 (5 6) orthogonal array design (OAD) with six factors at five levels using statistical analysis was employed to optimize the experimental conditions for each product in which the interactions between the variables were temporarily neglected. The six factors were adiponitrile concentration (ADN c, wt%), ...