Manufacture of purified alcohols
AssigneeExxonMobil Chemical Patents Inc.
InventorsRonald Dean Garton, Corey W. Reed, Krishna Kulai Rao, Bruce D. Lilly, Ramzi Yanni Saleh, Raphael Frans Caers
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Acetals are formed from an aldehyde hydrogenation product mixture comprising alcohols and at most 2% of alde-hydes and the product is distilled to yield purified alcohols and a second stream containing acetals and/or unsaturated ethers.
Claims20
A system comprising a hydrogenation reactor containing a catalyst effective for hydrogenating aldehydes to alcohols, a first distillation tower downstream of the hydrogenation reactor, the first distillation tower having an inlet, an outlet located substantially at or near the overhead of the tower and an outlet located substantially at or near the bottom of the tower, and an aldehyde elimination reactor, wherein the aldehyde elimination reactor comprises distillation packing and/or trays and a catalyst effective for converting an aldehyde and an alcohol to the corresponding acetal.
A method for at least one of isolation and purification of an alcohol comprising the steps of
- (i) catalytically hydrogenating an aldehyde containing stream to produce a first mixture comprising at most 2% wt of the aldehyde and at least 75% wt of the alcohol based on the weight of the total first mixture,
- (ii) contacting the first mixture with an acetal formation catalyst under conditions suitable for formation of at least one of the acetal and an unsaturated ether of the aldehyde and the alcohol to produce a second mixture comprising the at least one of the acetal and the unsaturated ether and the alcohol, and
- (iii) distilling the second mixture to produce an overhead comprising the alcohol and a first bottoms comprising the at least one of the acetal and the unsaturated ether.
A system comprising a hydrogenation reactor containing a catalyst effective for hydrogenating aldehydes to alcohols, a first distillation tower downstream of the hydrogenation reactor, the first distillation tower having an inlet, an outlet located at a location selected from substantially at and near the overhead of the tower and an outlet located at a location selected from substantially at and near the bottom of the tower, and an aldehyde elimination reactor, wherein the aldehyde elimination reactor comprises at least one of distillation packing and trays and a catalyst effective for converting an aldehyde and an alcohol to the corresponding acetal.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.