Optimized liquid-phase oxidation
AssigneeEastman Chemical Company
InventorsAlan George Wonders, Lee Reynolds Partin, Wayne Scott Strasser, Marcel de Vreede, Puneet Gupta
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Abstract
Disclosed is an optimized process and apparatus for more efficiently and economically carrying out the liquid-phase oxidation of an oxidizable compound. Such liquid-phase oxidation is carried out in a bubble column reactor that provides for a highly efficient reaction at relatively low temperatures. When the oxidized compound is para-xylene and the product from the oxidation reaction is crude terephthalic acid (CTA), such CTA product can be purified and separated by more economical techniques than could be employed if the CTA were formed by a conventional high-temperature oxidation process.
Claims72
A process for producing a carboxylic acid, said process comprising:
- oxidizing an oxidizable compound in a liquid phase of a multi-phase reaction medium, wherein said oxidizing is carried out in a manner such that when the entire volume of said reaction medium is theoretically partitioned into 2,000 discrete horizontal slices of equal volume, less than 6 of said horizontal slices have a gas hold-up less than 0.1 on a time-averaged and volume-averaged basis, wherein the entire volume of said reaction medium has a gas hold-up in the range of from about 0.6 to about 0.9 on a time-averaged and volume-averaged basis, wherein said process further comprises deaerating a portion of said reaction medium in a deaeration zone separate from said reaction zone, thereby providing a substantially deaerated slurry, wherein said reaction medium is a three-phase reaction medium, wherein said deaerating is caused primarily by the natural buoyancy of the gas phase of said reaction medium in the solid and liquid phases of said reaction medium.
A process for producing a carboxylic acid, said process comprising:
- oxidizing an oxidizable compound in a liquid phase of a multi-phase reaction medium, wherein said oxidizing is carried out in a manner such that when the entire volume of said reaction medium is theoretically partitioned into 2,000 discrete horizontal slices of equal volume, less than 20 of said horizontal slices have a gas hold-up less than 0.2 on a time-averaged and volume-averaged basis, wherein the entire volume of said reaction medium has a gas hold-up in the range of from about 0.6 to about 0.9 on a time-averaged and volume-averaged basis, wherein said process further comprises deaerating a portion of said reaction medium in a deaeration zone separate from said reaction zone thereby providing a substantially deaerated slurry, wherein said reaction medium is a three-phase reaction medium, wherein said deaerating is caused primarily by the natural buoyancy of the gas phase of said reaction medium in the solid and liquid phases of said reaction medium.
A process for producing a carboxylic acid, said process comprising:
- oxidizing an oxidizable compound in a liquid phase of a multi-phase reaction medium, wherein said oxidizing is carried out in a manner such that when the entire volume of said reaction medium is theoretically partitioned into 2,000 discrete horizontal slices of equal volume, less than 40 of said horizontal slices have a gas hold-up less than 0.3 on a time-averaged and volume-averaged basis, wherein the entire volume of said reaction medium has a gas hold-up in the range of from about 0.6 to about 0.9 on a time-averaged and volume-averaged basis, wherein said process further comprises deaerating a portion of said reaction medium in a deaeration zone separate from said reaction zone thereby providing a substantially deaerated slurry, wherein said reaction medium is a three-phase reaction medium, wherein said deaerating is caused primarily by the natural buoyancy of the gas phase of said reaction medium in the solid and liquid phases of said reaction medium.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.