Patent ID: 8822748

Claim:
A process for the production of ethene by the vapour phased chemical dehydration of a feed comprising ethanol, water and ethoxyethane in a reactor at elevated temperature and pressure in the presence of a bed of catalyst comprising a supported heteropolytungstic acid said process comprising maintaining or configuring the reactor so that it operates in a regime which satisfies the following parameters: 0.05<( P water /( P ethanol +P ethoxyethane ))/(8×10 −5 ×GHSV+0.75) (1) and −20< T reaction −T dew point −40 ×P total feed +40 ×P inerts <+80 (2) wherein P water , P ethanol and P ethoxyethane are respectively the partial pressures of water, ethanol and ethoxyethane in the thermodynamic equilibrium composition of the feed at the operating temperature and pressure of the process (in MPa), GHSV is the gas hourly space velocity of feed over the catalyst in hr −1 , T reaction is the temperature of reaction in ° C., T dew point is the dew point temperature of the feed at its thermodynamic equilibrium composition in ° C., P total feed is the total pressure of feed (in MPa) and P inerts is the partial pressure of inerts in the feed (in MPa).