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AssigneeAsahi Kasei chemcials corporation
InventorsShinsuke Fukuoka, Hironori Miyaji, Hiroshi Hachiya, Kazuhiko Matsuzaki
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It is an object of the present invention to provide a specific process that enables a dialkyl carbonate and a diol to be produced on an industrial scale of not less than 2 ton/hr and not less than 1.3 ton/hr respectively with high selectivity and high productivity stably for a prolonged period of time through a reactive distillation system of taking a cyclic carbonate and an aliphatic monohydric alcohol as starting materials, continuously feeding the starting materials into a continuous multi-stage distillation column in which a catalyst is present, and carrying out reaction and distillation simultaneously in the column. Although there have been many proposals regarding processes for the production of the dialkyl carbonate and the diol through the reactive distillation method, these have all been on a small scale and short operating time laboratory level, and there have been no disclosures whatsoever on a specific process or apparatus enabling mass production on an industrial scale. According to the present invention, there is provided a production process using the continuous multi-stage distillation column having a specified structure that enables the dialkyl carbonate and the diol to be produced on an industrial scale of not less than 2 ton/hr and not less than 1.3 ton/hr respectively each with a high selectivity of not less than 95%, preferably not less than 97%, more preferably not less than 99%, stably for not less than 1000 hours, preferably not less than 3000 hours, more preferably not less than 5000 hours, wherein the starting materials are introduced into specified stages of the distillation column, and the starting material aliphatic monohydric alcohol has a specified composition. As a result, the above object can be attained easily.
An industrial process for the production of a dialkyl carbonate and a diol in which the dialkyl carbonate and the diol are continuously produced through a reactive distillation system of taking a cyclic carbonate and an aliphatic monohydric alcohol as starting materials, continuously feeding the starting materials into a continuous multi-stage distillation column in which a catalyst is present, carrying out reaction and distillation simultaneously in said column, continuously withdrawing a low boiling point reaction mixture containing the produced dialkyl carbonate from an upper portion of the column in a gaseous form, and continuously withdrawing a high boiling point reaction mixture containing the diol from a lower portion of the column in a liquid form, wherein:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.