Claims
- 1. In the production of ethylene dichloride by fluid bed catalytic oxyhydrochlorination of ethylene by a process which includes the steps of:
- (1) introducing only gaseous reactants consisting of ethylene, hydrogen chloride gas and an oxygen-containing gas in a molar ratio of 1.0 to 1.2 moles of ethylene and 0.55 to 0.9 moles of oxygen for each 2 moles of hydrogen chloride into a bed of solid particles contained in a reaction zone at a flow rate such as to fluidize said solid particles and form a fluidized catalyst bed, said catalyst bed consisting of solid particles of a fluidizable alumina support having a surface area in the range of 60 to 150 square meters per gram, on which have been deposited outside said reaction zone catalytic salt consisting of cupric chloride in an amount such that the particles making up the bed contain 2 to about 10 weight percent copper,
- (2) maintaining said gaseous reactants in said reaction zone in contact with said fluidized solid particles under conditions such there is complete lack of liquid in said reaction zone and vapor phase reaction occurs to produce ethylene chloride, said reaction conditions including a temperature in the range of 190.degree. to 250.degree. C. and a contact time for any given quantity of reactants, of 10 to 40 seconds, and
- (3) recovering ethylene dichloride from the gaseous effluent from said reaction zone, the improvement for substantially preventing particles in said catalyst bed from sticking to one another during said process and thereby adversely affecting the ability to maintain the catalyst bed in the fluidized condition, which improvement consists in providing in the reaction zone to the fluidized bed of step (1), bare solid particles of said fluidizable alumina support on which no catalyst has been deposited and in situ in step (2) transferring to and depositing on said bare support particles a portion of the cupric chloride catalyst already deposited outside the reaction zone on other fluidizable support particles.
- 2. The process improvement of claim 1 further characterized in that the particles of fluidizable alumina support having surface area in the range of 60 to 150 square meters per gram additionally have a particle size distribution such that 90 to 95 weight percent of said particles are below 80 microns in diameter, 40 to 50 weight percent thereof are below 80 microns in diameter, 15 to 30 percent thereof are below 30 microns in diameter, no more than 3 to 10 weight percent thereof are smaller than 20 microns in diameter and no more than 1 to 5 weight percent thereof are larger than 200 microns in diameter.
- 3. The process improvement of claim 2 further characterized in that the proportion of bare particles of fluidizable alumina support so provided to the reaction zone is from 5 to 50 weight percent of the total of said bare particles plus the particles on which cupric chloride is already deposited outside the reaction zone.
- 4. The process improvement of claim 3 further characterized in that the reactants in the reaction zone are maintained at a temperature of 235.degree. to 250.degree. C., the fluidizable alumina support particles have a surface area in the range of 60 to 80 square meters per gram and the copper content of the support on which cupric chloride is deposited outside the reaction zone is about 5 weight percent.
Parent Case Info
This is a continuation of application Ser. No. 091,289, filed Nov. 5, 1979, now abandoned.
US Referenced Citations (5)
Foreign Referenced Citations (1)
Number |
Date |
Country |
7016124 |
May 1971 |
NLX |
Non-Patent Literature Citations (2)
Entry |
"Chlorination of Methane with Copper Chloride Melts", Fontana et al-Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, vol. 44, No. 2, pp. 363-368, (Feb. 1952). |
"Kinetics and Mechanism of the Catalytic Oxidation of Hydrogen Chloride", Shakhovtseva et al-Translated from Russian, Kinetika i Kataliz, vol. 11, No. 6, pp. 1469-1475, (Nov./Dec. 1970). |
Continuations (1)
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Number |
Date |
Country |
Parent |
91289 |
Nov 1979 |
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