Patent ID: 7319169

Claim:
In a method for producing (meth)acrylic acid comprising a process of recovering (meth)acrylic acid as an aqueous solution from a (meth)acrylic acid-containing gas mixture produced by the catalytic gas phase oxidation of at least one reactant selected from the group consisting of propane, propylene, isobutylene and (meth)acrolein, the improvement wherein the recovery process comprises the steps of: (1) feeding the (meth)acrylic acid-containing gas mixture into a quenching tower and condensing it so as to recover (meth)acrylic acid as an aqueous solution containing (meth)acrylic acid from the bottom of the quenching tower, in which some of the recovered aqueous (meth)acrylic acid solution is recycled to the upper part of the quenching tower and is used to condense the (meth)acrylic acid-containing gas mixture; (2) passing an uncondensed part of the (meth)acrylic acid-containing gas mixture from the quenching tower to an absorption column; (3) absorbing (meth)acrylic acid contained in the uncondensed part of the (meth)acrylic acid-containing gas mixture in the absorption column with a absorption solvent; (4) feeding the (meth)acrylic acid solution resulting from the absorption in the step (3) to a desorption column; and (5) separating the solvent used in the step (3) from the (meth)acrylic acid solution in the desorption column, so that the (meth)acrylic acid solution from which the solvent has been removed in the desorption column is fed to the quenching tower, and the separated solvent is recycled to the absorption column.