Shell Oil Comapny

Arien Kwantes

Pieter A Gautier

Arie Van Dongen

Anthony L Farragher

Hendrik A Groeneveld

Bernhard Stouthamer

Cornelis W De Goederen

A process for the preparation of ethanol by catalytic hydration of ethylene in which the crude ethanol is separated by distillation in a first column into a bottom stream consisting of aqueous ethanol and a top stream containing diethyl ether and acetaldehyde, the bottom stream is processed further in a second column, the top stream is hydrogenated and then fractionated in a third column together with an impurities containing stream originating from the second column, and optionally the diethyl ether containing top stream of the third column is recycled to the hydration reactor.

Process for the preparation of ethanol

An improved continuous process for preparing bisphenols from phenols and carbonyl compounds in the presence of an acidic ion-exchange resin is described. The improvement comprises recycling a portion of the stream containing bisphenol to the reaction zone before the bisphenol is recovered therefrom.

Preparation of bisphenols

An improved continuous process for preparing bisphenols from phenols and carbonyl compounds in the presence of an acidic ion-exchange resin is described wherein the reaction zone comprises at least two reactors in series and a part the effluent from at least one reactor, with the exception of the last reactor, is recycled.

A process for the preparation of bisphenols is described which comprises reacting, in a reaction zone, at least 2 moles of a phenol with a carbonyl compound, at a temperature of from 40.degree. to 95.degree. C., in the presence of an acid ion exchanger, optionally partially modified with a compound having an acidic reacting group and a mercaptan group, and recovering the bisphenols from the reaction zone effluent, characterized in that the reaction zone effluent is contacted with an acid ion exchanger in metal salt form and/or a weak base ion exchanger. As a result, it has been found that the formation of undesirable compounds is substantially reduced.

An improved process for preparing bisphenols is described wherein a phenol is reacted with a ketone or aldehyde such as acetone in the presence of an ion-exchange resin modified by partial neutralization with p-aminothiophenol.

Process for preparation of modified ion-exchange resin

Controlling the average pore diameter of alumina-supported platinum or rhodium catalysts used for dehydrogenating lower secondary alcohol to ketones affects the product distribution. A large pore diameter gives high selectivities to the ketone corresponding in carbon number to the alcohol feed, whereas a small pore diameter permits coproduction of this lower ketone and economically attractive amounts of higher ketone condensation products.

Dehydrogenation of alcohols to ketones

Crude 2,2-bis(4-hydroxyphenyl)propane containing impurities such as 2-(2-hydroxyphenyl)-2-(4-hydroxyphenyl)propane is purified by first dissolving the crude material in a polyhydroxy solvent then adding water and an ether having a boiling point less than 110.degree.C whereby the ether extracts the 2,2-bis(4-hydroxyphenyl)propane. The ether-2,2-bis(4-hydroxyphenyl)propane extract is then distilled in the presence of toluene wherein the toluene-2,2-bis(4-hydroxyphenyl)propane bottoms product is separated and cooled to form a purified 2,2-bis(4-hydroxyphenyl)propane precipitate which is subsequently recovered.

Growing community of inventors

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Arien Kwantes