Phenol

Abstract

Cumene is first oxidised with air to form cumene hydroperoxide. The oxidation is carried out at 7 bar and at a temperature of 100oC. The cumene hydroperoxide is then concentrated to about 80 weight percent in a two stage fractionation. The concentrated product is cooled to 600'C and fed d'ir-ec t ly to the cleavage reactor where the cumene hydroperoxide ts rapidly decomposed to yield phenol and acetone. The cleavage mixture then passes through a three-column system where pure acetone is produced as the final overhead, and the bottoms stream containing u-methylstyrene, cumene and phenol is sent to the phenol recovery unit. The process efficiencies are 95 percent for cumene oxidation to cumene hydroperoxide and 95 percent for cumene hydroperoxide cleavage to phenol.