Glitsch, Inc.

John C McIntyre

Joseph C Gentry

Lloyd T Berg

Timothy L Holmes

Ronald G Gualy

Randa W Wytcherley

Disclosed is a method for recovering carboxylic acids having from one to ten carbon atoms, and particularly formic acid, acetic acid and mixtures of formic and acetic acids, from aqueous solutions, in which the aqueous solution is contacted with solvent consisting essentially of mixed trialkylphosphine oxides in counter-current liquid-liquid extraction flow in a contacting step to thereby transfer the acids from the aqueous solution to the solvent, thus producing a raffinate relatively low in acid content and a rich solvent. The rich solvent is preferably dehydrated to separate water therefrom and yield a dehydrated rich solvent. The dehydrated rich solvent then has the acids stripped from it and the resulting lean solvent is then returned to the liquid-liquid extraction step, while the separated acids are split into their constituent components in a distillation operation.

Method for recovering carboxylic acids from aqueous solutions

Benzene and other aromatics are separated from a stream of mixed hydrocarbons containing both aromatics and non-aromatics by extractive distillation with a solvent system containing dimethyl sulfoxide and optionally a co-solvent, preferably water, followed by distillation stripping of the aromatics from the enriched solvent system, and recycle of the lean solvent system to the extractive distillation step.

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Hackettstown, NJ, United States of America

John C McIntyre