Patent ID: 7507857

Claim:
A process for producing a carboxylic acid, said process comprising: oxidizing an oxidizable compound in a liquid phase of a multi-phase reaction medium, wherein said oxidizing is carried out in a manner such that when the entire volume of said reaction medium is theoretically partitioned into 2,000 discrete horizontal slices of equal volume, less than 6 of said horizontal slices have a gas hold-up less than 0.1 on a time-averaged and volume-averaged basis, wherein the entire volume of said reaction medium has a gas hold-up in the range of from about 0.6 to about 0.9 on a time-averaged and volume-averaged basis, wherein said process further comprises deaerating a portion of said reaction medium in a deaeration zone separate from said reaction zone, thereby providing a substantially deaerated slurry, wherein said reaction medium is a three-phase reaction medium, wherein said deaerating is caused primarily by the natural buoyancy of the gas phase of said reaction medium in the solid and liquid phases of said reaction medium.