The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 06, 2003
Filed:
Sep. 13, 2001
Israel E. Wachs, Bridgewater, NJ (US);
Leigh University, Bethlehem, PA (US);
Abstract
A process and apparatus for oxidizing methanol in a gas stream into formaldehyde in a fixed bed reactor. The process first introduces a gas stream into a fixed bed reactor. The fixed bed reactor contains a catalyst bed having a depth, a width, a length, an inlet, an upstream region, a downstream region and an outlet. Preferably, the inlet, the upstream region, the downstream region and the outlet are provided in the order stated. A vanadia-titania catalyst is provided in the upstream region and a molybdena-titania catalyst is provided in the downstream region. The vanadia-titania catalyst in the upstream region is substantially free of MoO and initially (i.e., during oxidation some V O may sublime and migrate to the downstream region) the molybdena-titania catalyst in the downstream region is substantially free of V O . Next, the gas stream is contacted with the vanadia-titania catalyst under oxidizing conditions. Then, the gas stream is contacted with a molybdena-titania catalyst under oxidizing conditions which provides a product stream containing formaldehyde at the desired conversion and formaldehyde selectivity.