Oxygen → Glyphosate

Participants

Reaction Steps

Many of the various streams shown in FIG. 14A are analogous to those described above for the reaction system shown in FIG. 14 in which the adiabatic crystallizer 319 and the heat-driven evaporative crystallizer 343 are operated in a semi-parallel manner. An aqueous feed stream 301 comprising an N-(phosphonomethyl)iminodiacetic acid substrate is introduced along with oxygen into a primary oxidation reactor system 303 comprising one or more oxidation reaction zone(s), wherein the N-(phosphonomethyl)iminodiacetic acid substrate is oxidatively cleaved in the presence of a catalyst to form a reaction product solution 305 comprising N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine product and unreacted N-(phosphonomethyl)iminodiacetic acid substrate. The reaction product solution 305 from the primary reactor system 303, after catalyst separation (e.g., by filtration) if necessary, is divided into plural fractions comprising a primary fraction 317 and a secondary oxidation reactor feed fraction 315. The primary fraction 317 is introduced into the adiabatic crystallizer 319 and is cooled by flash evaporation of water therefrom under reduced pressure conditions to recover the N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine product as described above. The secondary oxidation reactor feed fraction 315 is introduced into a secondary oxidation reactor system 316 comprising one or more oxidation reaction zones in which unreacted N-(phosphonomethyl)iminodiacetic acid substrate is oxidized to produce a secondary oxidation reactor effluent 318 comprising N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine product. The secondary reactor feed fraction 315 may be cooled prior to introduction into the secondary oxidation reactor system 316 to remove exothermic heat generated in the primary oxidation reactor system 303 and reduce production of by-products. Reactor effluent 318 is introduced into the non-adiabatic heat-driven evaporative crystallizer wherein water is evaporated therefrom to precipitate and recover the N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine product as described above.

Provenance & Evidence