Claims
- 1. A process for treating a sour hydrocarbon containing a mercaptan, the process comprising:a) passing the hydrocarbon through an inlet into an upper portion of a reactor comprising a vertically oriented vessel; b) contacting the hydrocarbon, an oxidizing agent, and an alkaline reagent at oxidizing conditions with a fixed bed of catalyst effective to oxidize the mercaptan and yield a treated product and a spent reagent; c) withdrawing the spent reagent from a lower portion of the vessel through a drain; d) receiving the treated product through a plurality of perforated surfaces that extend vertically over a portion of the fixed catalyst bed and are dispersed over the catalyst bed cross section, and; e) collecting the treated product into a piping manifold to withdraw the treated hydrocarbon product from the vessel.
- 2. The process of claim 1 where the sour hydrocarbon is selected from the group consisting of naphtha, straight run gasoline, cracked gasoline, and mixtures thereof.
- 3. The process of claim 1 where the alkaline reagent is a caustic solution selected from the group consisting of sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide, ammonium hydroxide, and mixtures thereof.
- 4. The process of claim 3 where the caustic solution is sodium hydroxide.
- 5. The process of claim 4 where the treated product contains less than about 1 ppm of sodium by weight.
- 6. The process of claim 1 where the catalyst comprises a solid carrier having a metal phthalocyanine compound deposited thereon.
- 7. The process of claim 6 where the metal phthalocyanine compound is cobalt phthalocyanine, cobalt phthalocyanine sulfonate, cobalt phthalocyanine disulfonate, vanadium phthalocyanine, vanadium phthalocyanine sulfonate, or vanadium phthalocyanine disulfonate.
- 8. The process of claim 6 where the solid carrier is activated carbon.
- 9. The process of claim 1 where the oxidizing conditions include a temperature from about 30° C. to about 100° C., an absolute pressure from about 1 to about 30 atmospheres, and a liquid hourly space velocity from about 0.1 to about 10 hr−1.
- 10. The process of claim 1 further comprising withdrawing the spent reagent from below the fixed catalyst bed.
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
This application is a division of co-pending U.S. application Ser. No. 09/280,956 filed on Mar. 29, 1999 which is incorporated by reference in its entirety.
US Referenced Citations (6)