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US 10,519,089 B2Granted
Method and apparatus for carbonylating methanol with acetic acid enriched flash stream
AssigneeCelanese International Corporation
InventorJeremy J. Patt
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Abstract
A carbonylation process for producing acetic acid including: (a) carbonylating methanol or its reactive derivatives in the presence of a Group VIII metal catalyst and methyl iodide promoter to produce a liquid reaction mixture including acetic acid, water, methyl acetate and methyl iodide; (b) feeding the liquid reaction mixture at a feed temperature to a flash vessel which is maintained at a reduced pressure; (c) flashing the reaction mixture to produce a crude product vapor stream.
Claims14
A carbonylation process for producing acetic acid comprising:
- (a) carbonylating methanol, methyl acetate, dimethyl ether, methyl formate, methyl iodide, or combinations thereof in a reactor in the presence of a homogeneous rhodium metal catalyst and methyl iodide promoter to produce a liquid reaction mixture including acetic acid, water, methyl acetate and methyl iodide;
- (b) feeding the liquid reaction mixture to a flash vessel and heating the liquid reaction mixture in the flash vessel to separate the liquid reaction mixture into a crude product vapor stream and a catalyst solution;
- (c) recycling the catalyst solution to the reactor;
- (d) separating the crude product vapor stream in a first distillation column into an overhead stream comprising methyl iodide, methyl acetate and water and process stream comprising acetic acid;
- and
- (e) condensing the overhead stream and separating the condensed overhead stream into an aqueous stream and an organic stream,
- wherein the ratio of the crude product vapor stream to the catalyst solution separated in the flash vessel is about 27.5/72.5 to 86.9/13.1 in terms of the mass ratio.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.