Patent ID: 9695368
Date: 2017-07-04
CPC Classifications: B01J,C10G,Y02P

Claim:
1. A process, comprising: flowing a gas comprising hydrogen and a liquid comprising a hydrocarbon reactant in a microchannel reactor, the microchannel reactor containing a catalyst, the gas and the liquid contacting the catalyst, the hydrogen reacting with the hydrocarbon reactant in the presence of the catalyst to form one or more products; and removing the one or more products from the microchannel reactor; wherein: (a) the hydrocarbon reactant comprises a hydrocarbon with a first hydrocarbon chain length, the hydrocarbon reactant being converted to two or more hydrocarbon products, the hydrocarbon products having chain lengths that are shorter than the first hydrocarbon chain length; or (b) the hydrocarbon reactant comprises one or more heteroatoms bonded to the hydrocarbon reactant and at least one of the heteroatoms reacts with the hydrogen to form a heteroatom containing compound, the product comprising a hydrocarbon product characterized by the absence of heteroatoms bonded to the hydrocarbon product or a reduced number of heteroatoms bonded to the hydrocarbon product as compared to the number of heteroatoms bonded to the hydrocarbon reactant; and wherein the microchannel reactor has a length, a width and a height and comprises: a plurality of process microchannels, the catalyst being in the process microchannels; and a flow distribution apparatus for distributing flow of the liquid to the process microchannels, the flow distribution apparatus comprising a feed manifold on a side of the microchannel reactor, and a submanifold and a flow restriction section within the microchannel reactor, the process microchannels extending along the length of the microchannel reactor and the submanifold extending along the width of the microchannel reactor; wherein the liquid flows through the feed manifold into the microchannel reactor and through the submanifold across the width of the microchannel reactor and into the flow restriction section and from the flow restriction section into the process microchannels where it contacts the gas and the catalyst.