Patent ID: 7910784

Claim:
A process for the production of styrene monomer from ethylbenzene comprising the steps of: feeding liquid ethylbenzene feedstock into a vaporizer unit capable of converting liquid ethylbenzene to gaseous ethylbenzene, wherein the vaporizer unit produces an overhead comprising gaseous ethylbenzene; feeding a gaseous mixture into said vaporizer unit, wherein the gaseous mixture comprises an amount of recycle gas sufficient to lower the boiling point of ethylbenzene by at least 5° C.; heating the vaporizer thereby converting liquid ethylbenzene to gaseous ethylbenzene, wherein the gaseous ethylbenzene is recovered in the vaporizer overheads; and catalytically dehydrogenating or oxydehydrogenating the ethylbenzene in the vaporized overheads thereby catalytically producing a styrene monomer.