Ethane → Ethylene

U.S. Pat. No. 6,031,143 and its corresponding EP 0 905 112 describe an integrated process for producing styrene by feeding benzene and recycled ethylene to an alkylation reactor to produce ethylbenzene, mixing the alkylation effluent with ethane and feeding the mixture to a dehydrogenation reactor containing a catalyst capable of contemporaneously dehydrogenating ethane and ethylbenzene. The resulting product is separated to produce a stream of styrene and ethylene, with ethylene being recycled to the alkylation reactor. The dehydrogenation reactor is preferably a fluidized bed reactor connected to a fluidized bed regenerator from which the catalyst is circulated between the regenerator and the dehydrogenation reactor in countercurrent flow. That is, catalyst is introduced to the dehydrogenation reactor from the top and slowly descends to the bottom in countercurrent with the gas phase reactants which are rising through the reactor. During this descent, the catalyst is deactivated. The deactivated catalyst is removed from the bottom of the dehydrogenation reactor and transported to the top of the regenerator where it descends to the bottom in countercurrent flow with hot air which is rising. During this descent, the carbonaceous residue present on the catalyst is burnt and the regenerated catalyst is collected at the bottom of the regenerator where it is subsequently circulated back to the top of the dehydrogenation reactor.

1. customThe resulting product is separated

ORD record

ord-2742ff118d7e47e892aef7bb75d33048

Source dataset

uspto-grants-2014_03

DOI

10.6084/m9.figshare.5104873.v1

Patent number

US08669406B2