Processes and apparatuses for naphthene recycle in the production of aromatic products

A process for the production of para-xylene, wherein the process comprises:

• a) introducing a raffinate product stream comprising C8 aromatic isomers to an isomerization unit to provide an isomerized stream, wherein the isomerized stream is produced in the presence of an ethylbenzene (EB) isomerization catalyst;
• b) passing the isomerized stream to an isomerate stripper column to provide an isomerate stripper overhead stream comprising C6− hydrocarbons and an isomerate stripper bottoms stream;
• c) passing the isomerate stripper bottoms stream to a naphthene splitter column to provide an overhead naphthene splitter stream comprising the C8 naphthenes and C7 aromatic hydrocarbons and a naphthene splitter sidedraw stream comprising C8 aromatic isomers;
• d) passing the overhead naphthene splitter stream to an extractive distillation column to provide a recycle feedstream comprising the C8 naphthenes and an extract stream comprising the C7 aromatic hydrocarbons;
• e) passing the recycle feedstream to the isomerization unit;
• f) providing a reformate stream comprising aromatic hydrocarbons to a reformate splitter to provide a reformate bottoms stream comprising C7+ aromatic hydrocarbons and a reformate overhead stream comprising C7− aromatic hydrocarbons;
• and
• g) passing a portion of the reformate bottoms stream from the reformate splitter to the naphthene splitter column.