Process for the dehydrogenation of hydrocarbons

Abstract

A process for the dehydrogenation of a dehydrogenatable hydrocarbon feedstock having small quantities of higher boiling range hydrocarbons which comprises: (a) introducing the dehydrogenatable hydrocarbon feedstock into a fractionation zone having at least a portion of reflux to a fractionation column supplied by the dehydrogenatable hydrocarbon feedstock to provide a dehydrogenatable hydrocarbon stream having a reduced concentration of higher boiling range hydrocarbons and a stream comprising the higher boiling range hydrocarbons; (b) introducing the dehydrogenatable hydrocarbon stream having a reduced concentration of higher boiling range hydrocarbon recovered in step (a) into a dehydrogenation zone containing dehydrogenation catalyst and operated at dehydrogenation conditions to provide a hydrocarbon stream comprising dehydrogenated hydrocarbons and unconverted dehydrogenatable hydrocarbons; (c) separating the hydrocarbon stream comprising dehydrogenated hydrocarbons and unconverted dehydrogenatable hydrocarbons from step (b) to provide a product stream comprising dehydrogenated hydrocarbons and a recycle stream comprising unconverted dehydrogenatable hydrocarbons; and (d) introducing the recycle stream comprising unconverted dehydrogenatable hydrocarbons recovered in step (c) into the fractionation column to provide at least a portion of feed to the fractionation column.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.