Patent ID: 8236172

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; condensing and phase separating the overheads fraction to recover a vapor phase comprising hydrogen sulfide and any unreacted hydrogen and a light hydrocarbon fraction; feeding the light hydrocarbon fraction to the catalytic distillation reactor system as a total reflux; withdrawing a liquid side draw fraction from a tray located intermediate a top of the column and an upper portion of the reaction zones comprising a hydrodesulfurization catalyst; heating the side draw fraction in one or more heat exchangers to a temperature in the range from 500 to 700° F.; feeding the heated side draw fraction and optionally hydrogen to a high temperature low pressure reactor to form hydrogen sulfide and a reactor effluent of reduced mercaptan content.