Celanese International Corporation

Brian W Hokkanen

G Paull Torrence

Ronald David Shaver

Tianshu Pan

Michael O Nutt

Greg Blanchard

Mark O Scates

Yaw-Hwa Liu

Andrew Shuff

A process for producing acetic acid comprising the steps of reacting carbon monoxide and at least one of methanol and a methanol derivative in a first reactor under conditions effective to produce a crude acetic acid product; separating the crude acetic acid product into at least one derivative stream, at least one of the at least one derivative stream comprising residual carbon monoxide; and reacting at least a portion of the residual carbon monoxide with at least one of methanol and a methanol derivative over a metal catalyst in a second reactor to produce additional acetic acid. Preferably the second reactor is a homogeneous reactor and a reactor carbon monoxide partial pressure is less than 1.05 MPa.

Production of acetic acid with high conversion rate

A process for producing acetic acid comprising the steps of reacting carbon monoxide and at least one of methanol and a methanol derivative in a first reactor under conditions effective to produce a crude acetic acid product; separating the crude acetic acid product into at least one derivative stream, at least one of the at least one derivative stream comprising residual carbon monoxide; and reacting at least a portion of the residual carbon monoxide with at least one of methanol and a methanol derivative over a metal catalyst in a second reactor to produce additional acetic acid.

In one embodiment, the invention is to an ion exchange resin composition comprising a metal-functionalized exchange resin comprising from 3% to 94% metal-functionalized active sites; and a non-metal-functionalized exchange resin comprising non-metal-functionalized active sites.

Purification of acetic acid product streams

The present invention is to a process for producing acetic acid comprising the step of reacting a carbon monoxide feed and methanol and/or a methanol derivative in a first reactor to produce a crude acetic acid product. The carbon monoxide may comprise less than 99.5 mol % carbon monoxide. The process further comprises the step of purging a carbon monoxide purge stream comprising a first amount of residual carbon monoxide and one or more impurities. Preferably, the first amount is greater than 20 mol %. The process further comprises the step of separating the crude acetic acid product into at least one derivative stream comprising a second amount of residual carbon monoxide. The process further comprises the step of reacting at least a portion of the second amount of residual carbon monoxide and methanol and/or a methanol derivative in a second reactor to produce additional acetic acid.

The present invention relates to a process for producing ethanol by methyl acetate hydrogenolysis. The process comprises the step of reacting carbon monoxide and methanol in a reaction medium to form a reaction solution that comprises acetic acid and from 0.5 to 25 wt. % methyl acetate. The process further comprises the step of esterifying the acetic acid and feeding the methyl acetate to a distillation column to remove alkyl halides. The process further comprises the steps of reacting the methyl acetate stream that does not contain alkyl halides and hydrogen in the presence of a second catalyst to form an alcohol product that comprises ethanol and/or methanol.

Process for producing ethanol from methyl acetate

A process for removing amine compounds from a process stream derived from a carbonylation process. The amine compounds may be present as iodide salts. The process stream also contains corrosion metal contaminants. The amine compounds are removed by mixing a portion of the process stream a slipstream to form an aqueous stream having a water concentration of greater than 50 wt. %. The aqueous stream is contacted with an exchange resin to remove amine compounds, as well as corrosion metal contaminants.

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Houston, TX, United States of America

Brian W Hokkanen