US 6,809,217 B1Granted

Process for the preparation of ethyl acetate

AssigneeDavy Process Technology Limited

InventorsStephen William Colley, Christopher Richard Fawcett, Colin Rathmell, Michael William Marshall Tuck

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Abstract

Ethanol is dehydrogenated in the presence of hydrogen over a dehydrogenation catalyst, for example, a copper on silica catalyst. The liquefiable products present in the resulting intermediate reaction product mixture are selectively hydrogenated over a suitable catalyst, such as 5% ruthenium on carbon, so as selectively to hydrogenate reactive carbonyl-containing by-products to the corresponding alcohols. Butan-2-one and n-butyraldehyde are thereby hydrogenated to 2-butanol and n-butanol respectively. A two stage distillation procedure is then used to purify the selectively hydrogenated product. A first distillate of ethyl acetate, ethanol and water produced in the first distillation zone is redistilled in the second distillation zone, thereby producing a bottom product comprising, typically, from about 99.8 mol % to about 99.95 mol % ethyl acetate and an overhead second distillate, which has a different composition from that produced in the first distillation zone and which is returned to the first distillation zone.

Claims29

Dependent claims

A process for the production of ethyl acetate which comprises:

(a) converting a C2 feedstock comprising ethanol to ethyl acetate in an ethyl acetate production zone by a procedure selected from:
(i) dehydrogenation, and
(ii) reaction with acetaldehyde
(b) recovering from the ethyl acetate production zone an intermediate reaction product mixture comprising hydrogen and liquefiable products comprising the majority of the ethyl acetate produced in step (a), ethanol, and by-products containing reactive carbonyl groups;
(c) passing at least a portion of the liquefiable products of the intermediate reaction product mixture as recovered from the ethyl acetate production zone to a selective hydrogenation zone and contacting the liquefiable products of the intermediate reaction product mixture with a selective hydrogenation catalyst in the presence of hydrogen in the selective hydrogenation zone maintained under selective hydrogenation conditions effective to selectively hydrogenate said by-products containing reactive carbonyl groups to corresponding alcohols;
(d) recovering from the selective hydrogenation zone a selectively hydrogenated reaction product mixture comprising ethyl acetate, ethanol, hydrogen and hydrogenated by-products comprising said corresponding alcohols;
(e) distilling the selectively hydrogenated reaction product mixture in one or more distillation zones so as to produce a first composition comprising substantially pure ethyl acetate and a second composition comprising ethanol and water;
(f) treating the second composition of step (e) to separate water therefrom and yield a third composition comprising ethanol with a reduced water content;
and
(g) recovering the third composition of step (f).

7 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.