Processes to improve catalytic metal accountability in hydroformylation processes

Abstract

Embodiments of the present invention are directed to processes to improve rhodium accountability in continuous liquid recycle hydroformylation processes. In some embodiments, a process comprises contacting in a reaction zone reactants comprising C7-C20 olefins, hydrogen, and carbon monoxide in the presence of a catalyst comprising rhodium and an organomonophosphite ligand to form a reaction fluid, wherein the feed rate of olefins to the reaction zone is greater than 100 kilograms/hour; providing the reaction fluid to a strip gas vaporizer to produce a product stream and a vaporizer tails stream; measuring the C7-C20 olefin content in the vaporizer tails stream; and adding a C7-C20 olefins stream comprising at least 50 weight percent C7-C20 olefins to the vaporizer tails stream to maintain the C7-C20 content in vaporizer tails stream above 2 percent by weight.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.