Highly selective ethylbenzene production through alkylation of dilute ethylene with gas phase-liquid phase benzene and transalkylation feed

A novel industrial process was designed for the highly selective production of ethylbenzene. It comprised of a reactor vessel, vapor phase ethylene feed stream, benzene and transalkylation feed stream. Especially the product stream containing ethylbenzene was used to heat the reactor vessel, which consisted of an alkylation section, an upper heat exchange section, and a bottom heat exchange section. In such a novel reactor, vapor phase benzene and liquid phase benzene were coexisted due to the heat produced by isothermal reaction between the upper heat exchange section and the bottom heat exchange section. The process was demonstrated by the thermodynamic analysis and experimental results. In fact, during the 1010 hour-life-test of gas phase ethene with gas phase-liquid phase benzene alkylation reaction, the ethene conversion was above 95%, and the ethylbenzene selectivity was above 83% (only benzene feed) and even higher than 99% (benzene plus transalkylation feed). At the same time, the xylene content in the ethylbenzene was less than 100 ppm when the reaction was carried out under the reaction conditions of 140–185 °C of temperature, 1.6–2.1 MPa of pressure, 3.0–5.5 of benzene/ethylene mole ratio, 4–6 v% of transalkylation feed/(benzene+transalkylation feed), 0.19–0.27 h−1 of ethene space velocity, and 1000 g of 3998 catalyst loaded. Thus, compared with the conventional ethylbenzene synthesis route, the transalkylation reactor could be omitted in this novel industrial process.