General Electric Company

Nitin Vaish

John William Fulmer

Pramod Shankar Kumbhar

Jacob Lee Oberholtzer

R Jothi Mahalingam

A process for separating sulfonic acid compounds from a phenolic solvent is provided by contacting the phenolic solvent with a hydrotalcite-type material (HTM). The process can be applied in the conventional industrial process for converting cumene to phenol to remove sulfonic acid compounds from the phenol product. A process and a facility for producing purified phenol by converting cumene to phenol are provided. In the conversion of cumene to phenol, the phenol often contains carbonyl-type impurities. The phenol and carbonyl-type impurities are reacted in the presence of a sulfonic acid cation exchange resin catalyst (IER) to produce a reaction product that may contain sulfonic acid compounds. The reaction product is contacted with an HTM to reduce the amount of sulfonic acid compounds which may be present and to produce a purified phenol-containing stream. The purified phenol-containing stream may be further purified using conventional separation techniques, such as distillation.

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Montgomery, AL, United States of America

Nitin Vaish