Eastman Chemical Company

Ernest William Arnold, Iii

Charles Edwan Sumner, Jr

Eric Jackson Fugate

Alan George Wonders

Robert Lin

Philip Edward Gibson

Brent Alan Tennant

Thomas Earl Woodruff

Charles Helton Hitchcock

Thomas Young Lightfoot

John David Aycock

Disclosed is an optimized process and apparatus for more efficiently and economically carrying out the liquid-phase oxidation of an oxidizable compound. Such liquid-phase oxidation is carried out in a bubble column reactor that provides for a highly efficient reaction at relatively low temperatures. When the oxidized compound is para-xylene and the product from the oxidation reaction is crude terephthalic acid (CTA), such CTA product can be purified and separated by more economical techniques than could be employed if the CTA were formed by a conventional high-temperature oxidation process.

Optimized liquid-phase oxidation

Disclosed is a process to produce a purified carboxylic acid product. The process comprises removing impurities from a crude carboxylic acid slurry in a solid-liquid displacement zone to form a slurry product. The slurry product if further treated in a staged oxidation zone and a crystallization zone to from a crystallized product. The crystallized product is further cooled in a cooling zone and subsequently filtered and dried in a filtration and drying zone. The process produces purified carboxylic acid product having good color and low impurity levels without the use of purification steps like hydrogenation.

Process for the purification of a crude carboxylic acid slurry

Growing community of inventors

Lake Wylie, SC, United States of America

Ernest William Arnold, Iii