Acetic Acid → Benzyl acetate

Participants

Reaction Steps

A process for producing benzyl acetate by oxyacetoxylation of toluene with acetic acid and oxygen in a liquid phase in the presence of oxyacetoxylation-active catalyst, comprising steps of feeding toluene, acetic acid, and oxygen to an oxyacetoxylation reactor to cause reaction and to obtain an effluent from the reactor; introducing the effluent from the reactor to a gas-liquid separator to separate a gas phase mainly composed of oxygen and nitrogen and a liquid phase mainly composed of toluene, acetic acid, and benzyl acetate; introducing the liquid phase discharged from the gas-liquid separator to a starting material recovery column to separate the liquid phase by distillation into a column top distillate mainly composed of toluene and acetic acid and a column bottom liquid mainly composed of benzyl acetate; recycling the column top distillate from the starting material recovery column to the oxyacetoxylation reactor; introducing the column bottom liquid of the starting material recovery column to a low-boiler removal column to separate the column bottom liquid by distillation into a column top fraction mainly composed of benzaldehyde and a column bottom fraction mainly composed of benzyl acetate; introducing the column bottom fraction of the low-boiler removal column to a high-boiler removal column for distillation to obtain benzyl acetate from the column top thereof.

Provenance & Evidence