Continuous process for recovery of cyclohexanone

In a process for the oxidation of cyclohexane to cyclohexanone comprising:

• a. reacting cyclohexane and oxygen at a temperature of 75.degree.-200.degree.C and a pressure of 1-50 atmospheres to produce a reaction product comprising cyclohexanol and cyclohexanone;
• b. removing acids from the reaction product;
• c. recovering nonconverted cyclohexane from the reaction product by distillation and returning it to the oxidization zone of step (a);
• d. saponifying the remaining reaction product to increase the yield of cyclohexanol;
• e. thereafter first distilling off and discarding a light or top fraction from the reaction product, which light fraction contains substantially all products with boil-point under the prevalent distillation conditions below that of cyclohexanone;
• f. further distilling the reaction product to recover cyclohexanone as a second light fraction and to produce a bottom product containing cyclohexanol;
• g. dehydrogenating cyclohexanol from the bottom product of step (f) to produce a conversion product containing cyclohexanone and cyclohexanol and introducing this conversion product back into the process at step (e);
• the improvement comprising:
• removing substantially all of the water from the conversion product of step (g) by azeotropic distillation in the presence of cyclohexane as a separating agent, before directing this conversion product to distillation step (e).