Arco Chemical Technology, L.p.

Lyondell Chemical Technology, L.p.

Mark A Liepa

Robert N Cochran

Lawrence M Candela

Xiangmin Li

David W Leyshon

John C Jubin, Jr

Frank J Liotta, Jr

Rangasamy Pitchai

Bernard Cooker

Prakash G Balan

W Wayne Wentzheimer

Paul E Galick

Robert Nedwick

Processes for producing propylene glycol monoalkyl ether are described herein and include contacting propylene oxide and an alcohol in the presence of an alkali or alkaline earth metal alkoxide catalyst to produce an alkoxylation mixture including propylene glycol monoalkyl ether; distilling the alkoxylation mixture to produce a first overhead stream including propylene oxide and the alcohol and a first bottoms stream including propylene glycol monoalkyl ether; distilling the first bottoms stream to produce a second overhead stream including purified propylene glycol monoalkyl ether and a second bottoms stream including heavier byproducts; further distilling the second bottoms stream to form a resulting bottoms stream including caustic and heavier byproducts; introducing an alkali metal borohydride into at least a portion of the resulting bottoms stream to form an alkali metal borohydride containing stream; and introducing the alkali metal borohydride containing stream into one or more distillations upstream of recovery of the second overhead stream.

Production of propylene glycol monoalkyl ether

The invention is a process for producing a propylene glycol monoalkyl ether which comprises first reacting propylene oxide and an alcohol in the presence of an alkali or alkaline earth metal alkoxide catalyst to produce an alkoxylation mixture comprising propylene glycol monoalkyl ether; distilling the alkoxylation mixture to produce a first overhead stream comprising propylene oxide and alcohol and a first bottoms stream comprising propylene glycol monoalkyl ether; and then distilling the first bottoms stream to produce purified propylene glycol monoalkyl ether as a second overhead stream. The reaction and/or one or more of the distillation steps occur in the presence of an alkali metal borohydride. The process produces propylene glycol monoalkyl ether with low UV absorbance and reduced carbonyl impurities.

A drycleaning method is disclosed. The method uses a composition comprising 30 to 90 wt. % of a dipropylene glycol C-Calkyl ether, 5 to 65 wt. % of one or more C-Chydrocarbons, and 1 to 10 wt. % of water. The method combines acceptable stain removal with faster-than-expected evaporability, particularly at the elevated temperatures used in commercial drycleaning.

Drycleaning method

Propylene oxide is produced by liquid phase reaction of propylene oxygen and hydrogen in contact with a solid epoxidation catalyst at elevated temperature and pressure, the reaction conditions being regulated to provide a weight ratio of dissolved oxygen to dissolved hydrogen in the liquid reaction mixture of at least 16.

Epoxidation process

The process for removing impurities from a liquid by contact with a solid adsorbent using parallel contact adsorbent beds such that when one bed is contacting the liquid the parallel bed is being regenerated by contact with heated inert gas, wherein during changeover of the beds inert gas is transferred from the regenerated bed to the spent bed during the period that liquid is being drained from the spent bed.

Adsorbent bed loading and regeneration

An integrated process is provided for the production of propylene oxide from propane wherein propane is dehydrogenated to propylene and hydrogen and the resulting propylene, propane, and hydrogen mixture together with added oxygen is reacted over a palladium on titanium silicilite catalyst to form propylene oxide, the molar ratio of oxygen to hydrogen in the reaction feed being at least about 2/1.

Propylene oxide production

The present invention relates to the epoxidation of olefins using cyclohexyl hydroperoxide as reactant, the improvement being using a secondary or tertiary alcohol such as cyclohexanol or tertiary butyl alcohol as a stabilizing agent during the epoxidation, the alcohol stabilizer being fed to the epoxidation reaction zone in an amount greater than 3 moles per mole of hydroperoxide fed to the epoxidation reaction zone.

Growing community of inventors

Exton, PA, United States of America

Mark A Liepa