Patent ID: 8124819

Claim:
A process for oligomerization of isobutene, the process comprising: feeding a hydrocarbon stream comprising n-butane, 1-butene, 2-butene, isobutane, and isobutene to a catalytic distillation reactor system comprising a hydroisomerization catalyst; feeding hydrogen to the catalytic distillation reactor system; concurrently in the catalytic distillation reactor system: contacting the 1-butene with the hydrogen in the presence of the hydroisomerization catalyst to convert at least a portion of the 1-butene to 2-butene; separating the isobutane and the isobutene from the n-butane and the 2-butene; recovering the isobutane and the isobutene from the catalytic distillation reactor system as an overheads fraction, wherein the overheads comprises less than 250 ppm 1-butene; recovering the n-butane and the 2-butene from the catalytic distillation reactor system as a bottoms fraction; contacting the overheads fraction in an oligomerization reaction system with an oligomerization catalyst in the presence of an oxygen-containing moderator to convert a portion of the isobutene to oligomers, and react a portion of the isobutene with the oxygen-containing moderator to form oxygenated byproducts; recovering an effluent from the oligomerization reaction system comprising: the oliogomers, isobutane, unreacted isobutene, and the oxygenated byproducts; separating a fraction comprising the oligomers and the oxygenated byproducts from the isobutane and the unreacted isobutene; hydrogenating or alkylating the fraction comprising the oligomers without further separation of the oxygenated byproducts from the oligomers.