RATIONAL USE OF HEAT ENERGY IN THE PROCESS OF PRODUCING ETHYLENE CARBONATE AND ETHYLENE GLYCOL Russian patent published in 2022 - IPC C07C29/10 C07C31/20 C07D317/38 B01D53/70 B01J19/00 

FIELD: heat exchange.

SUBSTANCE: present invention relates to a method for producing ethylene carbonate and/or ethylene glycol, as well as a reaction system for realizing said method. Proposed method comprises the following steps: feeding ethylene oxide absorber overhead stream (14) into condenser (15) to produce cooled recycle gas stream (20) and one or more aqueous streams, heating at least a portion of cooled recycle gas stream (20) to produce heated recycle gas stream (30), contacting heated recycle gas stream (30) with one or more protective layer materials in one or more protective layer systems (31) located upstream of reactor for producing ethylene oxide (2), to obtain treated recycle gas stream (36), contacting initial gas (1) for epoxidation containing ethylene, oxygen and at least a portion of treated recycle gas stream (36) with an epoxidation catalyst in an ethylene oxide reactor (2) for producing an epoxidation reaction product stream (4), contacting epoxidation reaction product stream (4) in ethylene oxide absorber (9) with lean absorbent stream (10) in the presence of a carboxylation and hydrolysis catalyst to obtain stream (13) of an enriched absorbent containing ethylene carbonate and/or ethylene glycol and overhead stream (14) of an ethylene oxide absorber. Stream (20) of cooled recycle gas is heated by heat exchange with a hot process stream selected from (i) overhead stream (14) of ethylene oxide absorber in condenser (15); (ii) steam (24) obtained in a condenser located above the ethylene glycol purification column in a first heat exchanger located downstream of condenser (15); (iii) steam (25) obtained by flash evaporation of one or more condensate streams collected in the process in a second heat exchanger located downstream of condenser (15), or a combination thereof.

EFFECT: proposed group of inventions provides rational use of thermal energy when processing recycled gas streams.

15 cl, 2 dwg