Patent ID: 7014833

Claim:
In the process for reacting a first component with a second component to produce a product comprising: (a) feeding mercaptans, thiophenes or mixtures thereof as a first component and hydrogen as a second component to a distillation column reactor; (b) concurrently: (1) contacting said first component and said second component with a catalytic distillation structure in a distillation reaction zone thereby catalytically reacting at least a portion of said first component with said second component to form a product and (2) fractionating a first mixture comprising said first component and said product; and (c) withdrawing the product from the distillation column reactor; wherein the improvement comprises concurrently with (a) and (b) in said distillation column reactor: contacting a second mixture comprising said first component and said product with a non catalytic distillation structure in a parallel and separate distillation non reaction zone to fractionate said product from said first component and withdrawing said product from said distillation non reaction zone.