RECYCLING METHOD FOR OBTAINING ETHYLENE GLYCOL Russian patent published in 2023 - IPC C07C29/10 C07C31/20 

FIELD: ethylene glycol production.

SUBSTANCE: present invention relates to a liquid phase process for the production of ethylene glycol. The process includes the following steps: obtaining an aqueous ethylene oxide feed stream containing ethylene oxide and water; combining the catalytic hydration feed stream with the recycled split stream to form a first reactor inlet stream; feeding the inlet stream of the first reactor to the inlet of the first adiabatic reactor, where the inlet of the first adiabatic reactor has a first inlet temperature; reacting ethylene oxide and water in the presence of a first ion exchange resin catalyst in a first adiabatic reactor to produce an effluent containing water, ethylene glycol and unreacted ethylene oxide; further combining the effluent stream with the recirculated feed stream to form a combined stream containing water, ethylene glycol and unreacted ethylene oxide; feeding the combined stream to the inlet of the second adiabatic reactor, where the inlet of the second adiabatic reactor has a second inlet temperature; reacting ethylene oxide and water in the presence of a second ion exchange resin catalyst in a second adiabatic reactor to produce a second reactor effluent containing water, ethylene glycol and unreacted ethylene oxide; compressing the second effluent from the reactor; dividing the second reactor effluent into a recycle stream and a front stream; dividing the recirculated stream into a recirculated split stream and a feeding recirculated stream; feeding the front stream in the form of a tubular reactor feed stream to a non-catalytic tubular reactor to obtain a product stream in which the total concentration of diethylene glycol (DEG), triethylene glycol (TEG) and higher glycols in the product stream is higher than the total concentration of DEG, TEG and higher glycols in the front stream.

EFFECT: process maintains low resin swelling and excellent selectivity while reducing process complexity and increasing versatility.

18 cl, 3 dwg