Method for the preparation of dialkyl ethers
AssigneeChemical Research & Licensing Company
InventorsSperos Peter Nemphos, Dennis Hearn
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method for producing dialkyl ethers comprising feeding a stream containing a C.sub.1 to C.sub.4 alcohol to a distillation column reactor into a feed zone, contacting the stream with a fixed bed zeolite prepared as a distillation structure to form the corresponding dialkyl ether and water, and concurrently fractionating the ether product from the water and unreacted materials wherein the improvement is the addition of a small amount of hydrogen to the reaction zone to inhibit catalyst fouling and substantially increasing the catalyst life and activity.
Claims22
In a process for the production of dialkyl ether comprising the steps of:
- (a) feeding a stream containing an alkyl alcohol to a distillation column reactor into a feed zone,
- (b) concurrently:
- (1) contacting said stream containing said alcohol with a fixed bed zeolite catalyst prepared as a distillation structure in a distillation reaction zone thereby catalytically reacting at least a portion of said alcohol to form the corresponding dialkyl ether and water, and
- (2) fractionating the resultant dialkyl ether product from water and unreacted material,
- (c) withdrawing the dialkyl ether product from the distillation column reactor as a first stream containing substantially pure dialkyl ether, and
- (d) withdrawing water and unreacted material from the distillation column as a second stream;
- wherein the improvement comprises carrying out said reacting and fractionating in the presence of added hydrogen.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.