Process for the oxidative dehydrogenation of alkanes

A process for producing an alkene-containing product stream by oxidative dehydrogenation, comprising:

• a) providing a primary feedstream comprising a C2-C6 alkane through a reactor system having a total of “n” reaction stages in series, each of the reaction stages containing a catalyst bed, wherein “n” varies from 2 to 20,
• b) providing a secondary feedstream comprising oxygen to each of the reaction stages,
• c) producing an effluent stream comprising alkene, alkane, and oxygen from each of the reaction stages;
• d) cooling the effluent stream from reaction stages 1 through “n−1” to generate an input feedstream that is fed to the immediate next reaction stage;
• and
• e) producing the alkene-containing product stream in the “n”th reaction stage;
• wherein;
• each of the reaction stages is substantially adiabatic;
• the primary feedstream comprises ≥75% by volume of the C2-C6 alkane;
• and
• the effluent stream from each reaction stage comprises ≤0.5 mole % of oxygen.