Patent ID: 11932615
Assignee: nan
Field: Chemical engineering (Chemistry)
Classification: CPC B  C  Y | IPC B  C

Claim 0:
1. A method of purification of ethylene oxide which comprises:
quenching and washing ethylene oxide reactor effluent by contact with aqueous alkali, passing a gaseous ethylene oxide containing stream obtained from said quench/wash to an ethylene oxide absorber wherein the ethylene oxide is absorbed in water to form a dilute aqueous ethylene oxide and carbon dioxide-containing solution and thereafter stripping said dilute solution in a EO stripper to produce a gaseous ethylene oxide and carbon dioxide-containing overhead vapor which is then passed to a reabsorber wherein ethylene oxide and carbon dioxide are absorbed to form a concentrated aqueous solution, the reabsorbate then being passed to a carbon dioxide and lights stripper to release gaseous carbon dioxide and the ethylene oxide-containing solution being recovered for use or further treatment; and passing an purities-containing liquid stream obtained from said quench/wash to a second stripper such as a purge stripper or quench bleed stripper, introducing steam and carbon dioxide into said second stripper, feeding the gaseous overhead from said quench bleed stripper to said reabsorber and removing the impurity-containing bottoms from said quench bleed stripper, wherein the CO2 vapor is fed into the stripping steam to provide a minimum of 0.07 bar of CO2 partial pressure and/or the pH in the second stripper after feeding carbon dioxide to it is below 8.0.