PROCESS FOR PREPARING METHYL ETHERS

Abstract: The invention relates to a process for preparing tertiary methyl ethers. According to the process the feedstock containing hydrocarbons is fed to a catalytic distillation reactor system, in which the isoolefines, in particular the C4 to C7 isoolefines, of the feed are reacted with methanol in the presence of a cation exchange resin in order to produce tertiary methyl ether products. The reaction product containing the ethers is removed from the distillation system as the bottoms product and, if necessary, it is subjected to an additional treatment for producing a gasoline component. The unreacted methanol is removed as the overhead product of the distillation. According to the invention, the distillate withdrawn mainly contains an azeotrope of C4 hydrocarbons and methanol, the C4 amount of which at least approximately corresponds to the C4 hydrocarbon concentration of the hydrocarbon feed, a substantial amount of the unreacted methanol being removed in the form of said azeotrope. By means of the invention the need for a separate methanol washing unit is eliminated in the apparatus which considerably diminishes apparatus investment costs.

Description: Process for Preparing Methyl Ethers The present invention concerns a process in accordance with the preamble of claim 1 for preparing tertiary methyl ether products which are used, in particular, as a components of motor fuels. The products contain t-amyl-methyl ether and possibly heavier tertiary methyl ethers. According to the process, the isoolefins, in paπicular the C 5 - C 7 isoolefins of the feedstock are reacted with methanol for preparing the corresponding ethers. These ethers are removed together with the bottoms product of the distillation-reaction system and. if necessary, they are further processed in order to prepare a motor fuel component. Unreacted methanol is removed with the overhead product of the distillat¬ ion. In order to improve the anti-knocking characteristics of motor fuels without using organolead compounds, and in order to reduce the concentration of detrimental components in the exhaust gases, tertiary alkyl ethers are added to the fuels. The oxygen-contairiing ether group of these compounds has been found to improve the combustion process in a favourable way as far as the afore-mentioned aspects are concerned. Suitable alkyl rert-alkyl ethers are methyl t-butyl ether (MTBE), ethyl t- butyl ether (ETBE), t-amyl methyl ether (TAME), t-amyl ethyl ether (TAEE) and t- hexyl methyl ether (THME), just to mention a few examples. These ethers are prepared by etherification of a monovalent aliphatic alcohol with an isoolefin. The reaction can be carried out in a fixed bed reactor, in a fluidized bed reactor, in a tubular reactor or in a catalytic distillation column. In a fixed bed reactor, the feed components are reacted in the presence of a solid catalyst particles, said catalyst particles being contained in a layer which remains unmixed, because the liquid flow rates are so low that the catalyst panicles do not separate from each other. They form a so-called fixed bed. On the other hand, in a fluidized bed reactor, the flow rate of the liquid phase is so high that the catalyst particles float separately in the fluidized bed of the reactor. When the etherification is carried out in a catalytic i.e. reactive distillation process, th catalyst particles can form a fixed or fluidized bed in the column. The particular bene which can be obtained by the catalytic distillation process is that the reaction and the separation of the products take place in the same vessel. The etherification reaction is an exothermic equilibrium reaction, and the maximum conversion is determined by the thermodynamic equilibrium of the reaction system. Typically, by carrying out reaction and separation in one and the same reactive distillation column, it is possible to obtain an about 90 % conversion in the case of TAME, whereas only a 65 to 70 % conversion is obtainable in a fixed bed reactor. Ion exchange resins can be used as catalysts. Generally the resin used comprises a sulfonated polystyrene/divinyl benzene based cation exchange resin (sulfonated polysty¬ rene cross-linked with divinylbenzene) having particle sizes in the range from 0.1 to 1 mm. Commercially there are two alternative TAME processes available. The first one comprises fixed bed reactors, columns for product separation distillation and a methanol separation unit. The other alternative differs from the first one in the sense that the product distillation is replaced by a catalytic distillation unit, which substantially improves the TAME conversion. In a third completely novel process alternative, which is described in our copending patent application, the second alternative mentioned above has been modified by transferring the catalyst from the inside of the distillation column into a separate external reactor which is being fed from the product separation distillation unit. The side reactor product is recycled back to the same product separation distillation unit. Ethers heavier than TAME can also be produced by all of the above mentioned processes. The prior art processes are hampered by certain problems. Thus, the overhead product of the product distillation unit contains large amounts of light hydrocarbons and. for this reason, also so much unreacted methanol that the overhead product cannot be used in an alkylation unit or directly as a gasoline component. The methanol must be removed first which is the reason why a separate methanol separation unit has to be included in the process. The methanol separation generally comprises extraction with water and methanol-water distillation. The present invention aims at eliminating the problems associated with the prior art by providing a completely novel process for producing tertiary methyl ethers. The invention is based on the concept of operating the product distillation of a catalyti distillation reactor system in such a way that the methanol which is removed with the distillate is at least substantially bound to the hydrocarbons of the distillate forming an azeotrope with them. It is known per se that methanol forms an azeotrope with the components present in etherification mixtures of tertiary alkene ethers. There are several applications known, wherein the unreacted methanol is removed from the top of the distillation column together with C d hydrocarbons. Prior art processes of this kind are described in. e.g, the Published German Patent Application No. 2,705.538. the Published European Patent Application No. 78,422. U.S. Patent Specification No. 4.198,530 and the Swedish Applications Laid Open Nos. 448,452 and 459.175. The above-mentioned prior art publications concern the preparation of pure ether products. The present invention aims at producing ether products which as such can be used as gasoline components and which, except for the C Λ hydrocarbons, also contain least some of the inert hydrocarbon components of the feedstock. Thus, according to the invention, the unreacted hydrocarbons are mainly removed with the bottoms product of the distillation. The overhead product withdrawn from distillation substantially contains an azeotrope formed by the C 4 hydrocarbons and methanol. The amount of C Λ hydrocarbons in the distillate corresponds at least approximately to the amount of C Λ hydrocarbons present in the feed. In this way, an essential pan of the unreacted methanol is removed in the form of said azeotrope. In particular, the process according to the invention is mainly characterized by what is stated in the characterizing part of claim 1. Within the scope of this application, the expression "catalytic distillation reactor system" denotes an apparatus, wherein the ether product reaction and the separation of the products takes place at least partially simultaneously. The apparatus may comprise a conventional reactive distillation column or a distillation column combined with at least one side reactor. According to the invention the distillation column of the reactive distillation unit is operated in such a way that methanol is heavier than the hydrocarbons at the top of the distillation column. Therefore, methanol will tend to flow downwards. At the same time the vapor-liquid-equilibrium between C 5 and heavier hydrocarbons and methanol is maintained at such a value that methanol is lighter than the hydrocarbon. This causes methanol to flow upwards from the bottom of the column. Thus, methanol will circulate within the distillation system between the top and the bottom of the column. By fitting a reaction bed in the distillation column or by conducting a side stream from the column through a reaction bed in a side reactor, a methanol consuming reaction is created which will remove the methanol from the system. The amount of unreacted methanol can be controlled by adjusting the amount of Q hydrocarbons in the feed so that it correlates with the amount of methanol. The less there are C 4 hydrocarbons in the feed, the less distillate can be removed and the less methanol is removed from the process. By increasing the amount of C 4 hydrocarbons in the feed the distillate flow rate can be increased without any change of the relative amount of free unreacted methanol in the overhead product. Therefore, if desired. C* hydrocarbons (or even C ? hydrocarbons) can deliberately be added to the process so that the intended effect is achieved. When operating the process according to the invention, the methanol concentration of the bottoms product of the column can easily be reduced to as small a value as desired (even less than 100 ppm). The amount of methanol in the distillate will corrrespond to the amount bound by the azeotrope, only. The composition of the azeotrope and, thus. the amount of removed methanol depends on the hydrocarbon composition of the overhead product and the operating pressure of the reaction. If C 4 hydrocarbons make up the main part (over 90 %) of the overhead product, there will remain some 0.1 to 5.0 % by weight of methanol depending on the distillation pressure and the amount of C 5 hydrocarbons. The more C 5 hydrocarbons are included in the overhead product, the more methanol will be removed with it (there may be less than 90 % by weight of the C 4 hydrocarbons in the overhead product). According to a preferred embodiment of the invention, the reactive distillation system comprises a distillation column which is in fluid contact with at least one side reactor conraining a catalytic reaction bed. The side stream flow can be effected as a forced circulation by using a pump or by thermosiphon. This process alternative is described in more detail in our copending patent application which relates to a process and an apparatus for preparing tertiary ethers. According to a preferred embodiment the location of the drawoff from the column to the side reactor is selected such that the vapour-liquid equilibrium ratio (the K-value) o methanol is smaller than 1 on the trays above it. The reaction product containing methanol is returned from the side reactor to the column and it is fed to a tray having methanol K-value greater than 1. As a result methanol get more enriched in the vapor phase than do the hydrocarbons. The side stream makes up 40 to 90 %, typically abou from 60 to about 70 % of the total liquid flow within the column. The use of a side reactor is preferred for instance for the reason that the conditions prevailing in the distillation column can be influenced by changing the drawoff location of the side stream and bv feedine more methanol to the reaction bed. The invention can also be applied to a conventional catalytic distillation reactor. It is operated in the same way as a side reactor process. The only difference is that the methanol consuming reaction takes place within the column. In both process alternatives, the overhead product obtained can be forwarded to a MTBE unit. Since it contains some impurities (C 5 hydrocarbons, as far as the MTBE process is concerned), the overhead product can be introduced either in the feed of the MTBE unit, which means that the C 5 hydrocarbons remain in the MTBE product, or to the methanol washing unit of the MTBE unit. In the latter case the C 5 hydrocarbons end up in the raffinate stream of the MTBE unit (which contains mainly C 4 hydrocar¬ bons). Alternatively, the overhead product of the distillation can - because it contains only minute amounts of methanol and because the overhead is very small compared to the feed - also be combined with the bottoms product of the distillation in order to form a gasoline component. If necessary, the mixture is subjected to an additional treatment. According to a preferred embodiment of the invention, the C 4 hydrocarbon content of the feed is, however, deliberately kept so small that the mixture of the overhead and the bottoms products can be used as such as a component of motor fuels. Considerable benefits are achieved by means of the invention. Thus, due to the disclosed arrangement all of the unreacted methanol. which is comes out from the distillation column, is bound to an azeotrope. Since the amount of the removed methanol is small, no separate methanol washing unit is longer needed. This considerably diminishes the investment cost of the apparatus. It should further be pointed out that the process according to the invention can also be applied to the preparation of ethyl ethers because, similar to methanol, ethanol forms azeotropes with butanes. In the following the invention will be described in more detail with reference to the attached drawing which depicts a simplified scheme of the TAME process described in the working example. In the test arrangement according to the example, the hydrocarbon feedstock and the methanol are mixed together, the mixmre is heated and fed through the prereactor pa 1. 2. The hydrocarbon feedstock may, for instance, be a hydrocarbon fraction containing isoolefins. such as a hydrocarbon cut of a cat cracker, containing a mixmr of isoolefins. The prereactors consist of two reactors filled with ion exchange resin beds. The reactors can be fixed or fluidized bed or mbular reactors. The reactors may be arranged in series, as shown in the figure, or in parallel. If there are more than tw prereactors they may also be arranged in series/parallel. Because of the reaction there is a temperature rise in the prereactors in the range from about 5 to about 15 °C depending on the efficiency of the reactor insulation. From the prereactors the mixmr is conducted to distillation column 3. At the bottom of the distillation column there is steam reboiler 4. The distillation coiumn can be a packed column or one provided wit valve, sieve or bubble-cap trays. The overhead of the column is removed via a condenser 9 to a reflux drum 10, from which the overhead is removed by means of a pump 11. A pan of the overhead is forwarded to further processing, for instance to a MTBE process, and a part thereof is returned to the column. TAME and heavier ethe are removed with the bottoms product. In addition to the ethers, the bottoms product also contains unreacted C 5+ hydrocarbons. The reflux ratio of the column is preferabl from about Vi to 200. Even greater ratios can be used in pilot plant equipments. According to the invention, the reflux ratio is adjusted so that the distillate amount removed from the process at least substantially corresponds to the amount of C 4 hydrocarbons of the feed. Next to the distillation column 3 a side reactor system has been arranged, which consists of three reactors 5, 6, 7 in series. The reactors can, if desired, be replaced b one larger reactor. According to the mode of circulation the reactors can be fixed or fluidized bed reactors or mbular reactors, as mentioned above in the general part of t description. The side reactors are fed with a liquid stream taken from the column. Th pressure of the liquid stream is increased by pump 8. The side stream is preferably taken from a tray which is located below trays having methanol K-values less than 1. Additional methanol can, if needed, be fed to the side reactor feed before the side reactor. The reactor feed can be cooled to the reaction temperamre before the side reactor. Due to heat losses the temperature rises only by a few degrees in the side reactors. From the side reactor system 5 to 7 the liquid flow is routed back to column 3. It is then returned to a plate having a K-value greater than 1. According to the example, the reactor effluent enters the column at a location below the feed coming from the prereactors 1, 2. The aim of this arrangement is to make the column 3 operate in such a manner that the methanol in the overhead product is bound to the C 4 hydrocarbons in the form of an azeotrope. The following working example will clarify the invention: Example Preparation of TAME by using a catalytic distillation reactor system with pre- reactors and side reactors The apparatus configuration depicted in figure 1 was used. The inner diameter of the prereactors 1 and 2 was 102.3 mm and their lengths were 1500 mm. They were filled with the catalyst Dowex ® M-32 supplied by Dow Chemicals Inc. The catalyst comp- rises an acid sulfonated polystyrene/divinyl benzene based cation exchange resin. The inner diameter of the distillation column 3 was 160 mm. its height was 11.000 mm and it was equipped with packings. There were 6 beds of packings. The three side reactors 5 to 7 were arranged in series and each of them had an inner diameter of 154.1 mm. and a height of 1,150 mm. These reactors were also filled with the catalyst Dowex ® M-32. The hydrocarbon feed rate was 30 kg/h. Its composition is shown in Table 1. The table also indicates the amounts of methanol feed. The methanol and the hydrocarbon feed were mixed together and heated to 58 °C. Then the mixmre was conducted through prereactors 1 and 2. which caused the temperature to increase by 9 °C. From the prereactors the mixmre was conducted to the distillation column 3, the feed point being situated between the third and the fourth packed bed. The temperature of the distillation column was 40 °C at the top and 95 °C at the bottom, the operating pressure being 400 kPa. A sidestream was withdrawn from the column at a point between the second and the third packed beds. The temperature of said sidestream was 70 °C. It was cooled to 60 °C and fed to the side reactors 5 to 7. The liquid feed rate was 60 kg/h. The pressure of the feed was increased by pump 8 and methanol was added, as indicated in Table 1. The temperature rose by 3 °C in the side reactors (the temperature rise depended to some extent on the heat losses). From the side reactors the flow was routed back to th column, the feedback point of the side reactor being between the fourth and the fifth packing bed. At the top of the column distillate was withdrawn, the composition of which is indicated in Table 1. The composition of the bottoms product is also shown in Table 1. The K- values of the components within the column are depicted in Table 3. Three tests were carried out, no methanol being added to the side reactors in the first two tests. The methanol addition increases the yield of TAME, but it may also increas the amounts of unreacted methanol removed with the overhead product. In the exemplified case, at a reflux ratio of 110, said three tests produced overhead products containing 94.03, 95.32 and 60.51 % by weight, respectively, of C 4 hydrocarbons. The feed contained 2.4 % by weight of C 4 hydrocarbons, i.e. about 0.7 kg. As the data indicated below will show, the first two tests in which approximately as much distillate was taken (0.73 kg) from the column as there were C 4 hydrocarbons in the feed, rather low methanol concentrations were obtained. In the third test the distillate amount was almost twice as large as the amount C 4 hydrocarbons of the feed. As a result, there was almost 4 % methanol in the overhead product, i.e. almost twice as much as in the first test. Table 1. Test results of TAME preparation Test 1 Test 2 Test 3 Methanol feed (kg/h); to the prereactor 2.4 2.6 2.6 to the side reactor 0 0 0.5 Total 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 Amount (kg/h) 29 30.7 0.73 30.9 0.73 30.9 1.15 TAME = terr-amyl methyl ether THME = rerr-hexyl methyl ether TAOH = tέ.rr-amyl alcohol DME = dimethvl ether The typical methanol concentrations in the column are as follows: Table 2. Methanol concentrations of the TAME column Dist. Between the Drawoff 1st and 2nd beds MeOH [wt.-%] 2.24 10.2 2.24 Table 3. K-values in the TAME column 2M1B = 2-methyl-l-butene 2M2B = 2-methyl-2-butene 2M2P = 2-methyl-2-pentene Table 3 shows that the K-values of methanol increase rapidly from the top of the column towards its bottom, from the side draw towards the hydrocarbon feed. cf. the figure. Thus, by restricting the amount of distillate removed in accordance with the invention, it is possible to achieve the conditions described above in the general part of the description in which methanol flows downwards from the top of the column, re- vapourizing at the bottom of the column. Since, at the feedback point, the K-value of the methanol coming from the side reactor is greater than 1, side reactor circulation will enrich the vapor with methanol which enhances the methanol circulation.

Claims: Claims: 1. Process for preparing an ether product used as a component of motor fuels, said product comprising t-amyl methyl ether and possibly heavier tertiary methyl ethers, said process comprising the steps of - feeding a feedstock containing hydrocarbons, in particular C 4 . 7 hydrocarbons, to a catalytic distillation reactor system (3,5-7), wherein the C 5 . 7 isoolefines of the feedstock is reacted with methanol in the presence of a cation exchange resin to form tertiary methyl ethers. - removing the methyl ethers from the distillation reactor system (3,5-7) with the bottoms product of the distillation and, if necessary, subjecting them to further processing in order to form a gasoline component, and - removing the unreacted methanol with the distillate of the distillation, characterized by - substantially removing the unreacted hydrocarbons together with the bottoms product of the distillation and - withdrawing from the distillation only overhead product, which mainly contains an azeotrope of C 4 hydrocarbons and methanol. the C 4 amount of the withdrawn overhead product corresponding at least essentially to the amount of hydro¬ carbons in the feedstock, whereby an essential part of the unreacted methanol is removed in the form of said azeotrope. 2. The process according to claim 1, characterized the amount of distillate withdrawn from the distillation corresponds at least approximately to the amount of C 4 hydrocarbons present in the feed. 3. The process according to claim 1, characterized in that the distillation o the reaction is carried out in such a way that, at the top of the distillation column (3), the vapor-liquid equilibrium of the hydrocarbons and the methanol is such that met¬ hanol is heavier than the hydrocarbons and. at the boπom of the distillation column (3) the equilibrium of the C s and heavier hydrocarbons and the methanol is such that methanol is lighter than the hvdrocarbons. 4. The process according to claim 1. characterized in that the amount of unreacted methanol removed from the process is controlled by adjusting the concentra¬ tion of C 4 hydrocarbons in the feed. 5. The process according to claim 1, wherein the catalytic etherification reaction is carried out in a reactor or reactor system (5 - 7) external to the distillation column (3) by circulating a sidestream taken from the column through the reactor and returning it to a tray below the one from which it was taken, characterized in that the K-value of methanol is less than 1 on the tray above the drawoff tray. 6. The process according to claim 5, characterized in that the sidestream is returned to the column (3) at a point where the K-value of methanol is greater than 1. 7. The process according to any one of the previous claims, characterized by combining the distillate of the distillation with the bottom product of the distillation in order to produce a mixmre, and subjecting, if needed, said mixmre to further processing to produce a motor fuel component. 8. The process according to any one of claims lto6, characterized by combining the overhead product of the distillation with the feed of a MTBE production process or with the methanol separation unit thereof. 9. The process according to any one of claims ltoό. characterized by keeping the C 4 hydrocarbon concentration of the feed intentionally so small that the mixmre formed by the distillate and the bottoms product can be used as such as a component of motor fuel.

Inventors: AITTAMAA JUHANI, JAKKULA JUHA, TAMMINEN ESA, AITTAMAA, JUHANI, JAKKULA, JUHA, TAMMINEN, ESA
Applicants: NESTE OY
Application year: 1993
Main classification: C07C41
IPC codes: B01D3, B01J31, C07B61, C07C41, C07C43