Process for manufacturing ether and high purity butene-1

Details Process for manufacturing ether and high purity butene-1 Process for manufacturing ether and high purity butene-1

1996-02-12

2001-05-15

Jones, Dwayne C. (Department: 1614)

Organic compounds -- part of the class 532-570 series

Organic compounds

Oxygen containing

C568S698000, C568S699000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06232508

ABSTRACT:

This invention relates to the production of alkyl tertiary ether compounds and a high purity butene-1 product from a mixed hydrocarbon feedstock.
It is known that alkyl tertiary alkyl ether compounds can be prepared by reacting primary or secondary alcohols with olefin compounds having a double bond on a tertiary carbon atom in the presence of an acidic ionic exchange resin catalyst. The particularly more common etherification reactions are those that involve reacting methanol with either isobutene or isoamylenes to form respectively methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) and methyl tertiary amyl ether (TAME). Other etherification reactions include the reaction of ethanol with either isobutene or isoamylenes to form respectively ethyl tertiary butyl ether and tertiary amyl ethyl ether. These tertiary alkyl ether compounds are particularly useful as octane improvers for liquid fuels, especially gasoline. Also, because of the low vapor pressure of these compounds, they are particularly useful for reducing the vapor pressure of gasoline. Recent federal government regulations have resulted in the requirement that motor gasoline be reformulated to include greater concentration levels of oxygenate compounds of which tertiary alkyl ether compounds have been found to be especially suitable for assisting in compliance with these new federal regulations.
While processes for the production of high octane tertiary alkyl ethers have been known in the art, there still remains various problems with the known processes that have heretofore not been resolved by those skilled in the art. In particular, because standard etherification reactions are equilibrium type reactions, most etherification processes do not provide economical means for obtaining high olefin conversions without incurring high energy and capital costs to obtain such high olefin conversions.
In the production of tertiary alkyl ethers, a feedstock will often be a mixture of olefins including linear olefins as well as tertiary olefins. The linear olefins are generally nonreactive in an etherification reaction zone and will pass through the reaction zone without change. There can also be diolefins, such as 1,3-butadiene, present in an etherification reaction zone feed which will pass with the reactor effluent relatively unreacted. It has been found that due to the nonreactivity of linear olefins and, in particular, butene-1, an etherification reaction can be used to convert tertiary olefins of a feedstream containing isobutene and butene-1 to ether, which is relatively easily separated from butene-1, thereby permitting a reduced cost of production of high purity butene-1. In order to produce a high purity butene-1 product having a low concentration of isobutene, a high conversion etherification process may be used to assist in providing the high purity butene- I product. The 1,3-butadiene may be removed from the butene-1 product by a hydroisomerization reaction.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide an etherification process that produces tertiary alkyl ethers at high olefin conversion rates and low operating capital costs.
Another object of the invention is to provide a process for producing a high purity butene-1 product having a low concentration of isobutene from a feedstock containing a mixture of butenes.


REFERENCES:
patent: 3979461 (1976-09-01), Ancillotti et al.
patent: 4546206 (1985-10-01), Neier et al.
patent: 4558168 (1985-12-01), Gussow et al.
patent: 5237109 (1993-08-01), Patton et al.
patent: 5338889 (1994-08-01), Vora et al.
Encyclopedia of Chemical Processing and Design, vol. 30, 1989, pp. 82-86, “Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether”.

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