Patent ID: 8043495

Claim:
A process for reducing the sulfur content of a hydrocarbon stream, the process comprising: feeding a hydrocarbon stream comprising organic sulfur compounds to a catalytic distillation reactor system having one or more reaction zones comprising a hydrodesulfurization catalyst; feeding hydrogen to the catalytic distillation reactor system; concurrently in the catalytic distillation reactor system: fractionating the hydrocarbon stream into a heavy fraction and a light fraction; contacting hydrogen and the light fraction in at least one of the reaction zones to form hydrogen sulfide and a light fraction of reduced organic sulfur content; recovering the light fraction, hydrogen sulfide, and any unreacted hydrogen as an overheads fraction; recovering the heavy fraction as a bottoms fraction; heating the overheads vapor_fraction to a temperature in the range from 500 to 700° F.; feeding the heated overheads vapor fraction and hydrogen to a high temperature low pressure reactor comprising a hydrodesulfurization catalyst to form hydrogen sulfide and a reactor effluent of reduced mercaptan content; separating the reactor effluent, hydrogen sulfide, and any unreacted hydrogen to form a light hydrocarbon fraction, and a fraction comprising hydrogen sulfide and hydrogen; recycling at least a portion of the light hydrocarbon fraction as reflux to the catalytic distillation reactor system.