Patent ID: 7834218

Claim:
A process for producing phenol and methyl ethyl ketone, the process comprising: (a) contacting benzene and a C 4 alkylating agent under alkylation conditions and in the presence of an alkylation catalyst comprising at least one molecular sieve of the MCM-22 family to produce an alkylation effluent comprising sec-butylbenzene; wherein the contacting is conducted in a plurality of reaction zones and said C 4 alkylating agent is supplied to each of said reaction zones; (b) recovering a sec-butylbenzene fraction from said alkylation effluent, said fraction comprising at least 95 wt% sec-butylbenzene, less than 100 wt ppm of C8+ olefins, and less than 0.5 wt% of isobutylbenzene and tert-butylbenzene; (c) oxidizing the sec-butylbenzene recovered in (b) to produce a hydroperoxide; and (d) cleaving the hydroperoxide from (c) to produce phenol and methyl ethyl ketone.