Patent ID: 8829206

Claim:
A process for making a cyclic compound composition comprising: a. feeding a carbonyl composition comprising an aldehyde compound, a ketone compound, or a combination thereof, and a polyhydroxyl composition comprising a polyhydroxyl compound, to a reaction zone at a molar ratio of all polyhydroxyl compounds to all carbonyl compounds fed to the reaction zone of at least 3:1; and b. reacting the carbonyl composition with the polyhydroxyl compound in the presence of a solid acid to generate a liquid reaction mixture comprising cyclic compounds, water, and unreacted polyhydroxyl compounds; and c. without separating water from the reaction mixture as it is being formed in the reaction mixture, withdrawing the liquid reaction mixture from the reaction zone as a liquid product stream; and d. feeding the liquid reaction product stream directly or indirectly to a distillation column to separate cyclic compounds from unreacted polyhydroxyl compounds and withdrawing from the distillation column an overhead product stream and a bottoms stream, wherein the overhead product stream comprises cyclic compounds, unreacted polyhydroxyl compounds and water and is rich in the concentration of cyclic compounds by moles relative to the bottoms stream, and the bottoms stream comprises unreacted polyhydroxyl compounds and is rich in the concentration of unreacted polyhydroxyl compounds by moles relative to the overhead product stream; wherein the selectivity to cyclic compounds in the overhead product stream is at least 90%.