METHOD OF PRODUCING PHENOL Russian patent published in 2011 - IPC C07C37/08 C07C39/04 C07C37/68 C07C37/72 C07C37/82 

FIELD: chemistry.

SUBSTANCE: method of producing phenol involves: a) oxidising cumene to obtain an oxidation product containing cumene hydroperoxide; b) splitting said oxidation product using an acid catalyst to obtain a splitting product containing phenol, acetone, hydroxyacetone and impurities; c) neutralising and washing said splitting product with an alkaline aqueous medium to form a neutralised splitting product; d) separating said neutralised splitting product via at least one distillation step to obtain at least a fraction containing phenol, and an aqueous fraction containing hydroxyacetone; e) treating said aqueous fraction with an oxidative reagent in the presence of a base to obtain an alkaline aqueous medium with low content of hydroxyacetone; f) recirculating at least a portion of said aqueous alkaline medium to the neutralisation and washing step (c) and g) extracting phenol from said phenol-containing fraction obtained at step d).

EFFECT: obtaining the desired product with efficient removal of the by-product - hydroxyacetone.

25 cl, 1 dwg, 2 ex