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AssigneeDow Global Technologies LLC
InventorsSteven L.F. Corthals, Thomas Davidian, Gerolamo Budroni, Peter E. Groenendijk
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The present invention provides methods for making propanal in a reaction comprising the oxidative coupling of methane (OCM) and oxygen as a reactant stream in a gas phase reaction, preferably in the presence of water or steam, to form ethylene, ethane, carbon dioxide (CO2), water and syngas (CO and H2) in a first reactor as an ethylene stream, and then forming propanal in a second reactor by feeding to the second reactor the ethylene stream with the syngas from the first reactor in the gas phase and hydroformylating in the presence of a catalyst for a water shift reaction. In the method, the ratio of H2 to CO in the syngas is maintained by either co-feeding steam into the first reactor or the second reactor to generate additional H2 in the syngas, or by forming CO in the second reactor from the water shift reaction by feeding the CO2 from the ethylene stream into the second reactor.
A method for making propanal in a reaction comprising the oxidative coupling of methane (OCM reaction) and oxygen as a reactant stream in a gas phase reaction to form ethylene, ethane, carbon dioxide (CO2), water and syngas (CO and H2) as an ethylene stream in a first reactor containing an OCM zone and a downstream thermal cracking zone to form ethylene from ethane, and then forming propanal in a second reactor by feeding to the second reactor the ethylene stream from the first reactor in the gas phase and hydroformylating the ethylene stream to form a propanal containing product stream in the presence of a catalyst for a water gas shift reaction in which water and carbon monoxide (CO) form carbon dioxide and hydrogen gas (H2) and for the hydroformylating, wherein the molar ratio of the syngas to the total amount of ethylene and ethane in the ethylene stream before the downstream thermal cracking zone ranges from 2:1 to 10:1, and, further wherein, the molar ratio of total CO2 and CO to total ethylene and ethane in the ethylene stream before the downstream thermal cracking zone ranges from 0.97:1 to 5:1.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.