Patent ID: 8247607

Claim:
A process for the carbonylation of an alcohol and/or reactive derivative thereof, which process comprises; (a) feeding one or more reaction zone feed streams to a reaction zone, wherein at least one reaction zone feed stream comprises an alcohol and/or reactive derivative thereof, and at least one reaction zone feed stream comprises carbon monoxide; (b) maintaining in the reaction zone a temperature and pressure sufficient to allow an exothermic carbonylation reaction to take place to produce a carboxylic acid and/or carboxylic acid anhydride; (c) removing one or more product streams comprising carboxylic acid and/or carboxylic acid anhydride from the reaction zone; and (d) transferring heat contained in at least a portion of the one or more product streams to a first heat-exchange stream; wherein heat is transferred from a second heat-exchange stream to a reaction zone feed stream of step (a) before the reaction zone feed stream is fed to the reaction zone, and wherein the temperature of the second heat-exchange stream before heat transfer is lower than that of the one or more product streams.