Process Description ni Aniline

Nitrobenzene is fed to a vaporiser, E-101 where it is vaporised in a stream of hydrogen (three times stoichiometric).
The mixture is passed into a fluidized bed reactor R-101containing copper on silica gel catalyst, operated at a pressure,
above the bed, of 20 psig (140 kN/m2 ). The contact time, based on superficial velocity at reaction temperature and
pressure and based on an unexpanded bed, is 10 seconds. Excess heat of reaction is removed to maintain the
temperature at 270 C by a heat-transfer fluid passing through tubes in the catalyst bed. The exit gases pass through
porous stainless-steel candle filters before leaving the reactor. The reactor gases pass through a condenser/cooler E-
102, and the aniline and water are condensed. The excess hydrogen is recycled, except for a purge to maintain the
impurity level in the hydrogen to not more than 5 per cent at the reactor inlet. The crude aniline and water are let down
to atmospheric pressure and separated in a liquid/liquid separator LS-101, and the crude aniline containing 0.4 per
cent unreacted nitrobenzene and 0.1 per cent cyclo-hexylamine as well as water, is distilled to give refined aniline.
Two distilling columns are used, the first distilling column, D- 101 removing water and lower boiling material. The
vapour from the first column is condensed, and the liquid phases separated to give an aqueous phase and an organic
phase. A purge is taken from the organic stream to remove the cyclo-hexylamine from the system, and the remainder
of the organic stream recycled. The cyclo-hexylamine content of the purge is held to not greater than 3 per cent to
avoid difficulty in phase separation. The second distilling column, D-102 removing the higher boiling material
(nitrobenzene) as a mixture with aniline. In the second column, 8 per cent of the feed is withdrawn as bottoms product.

The aqueous streams from the separators (amine-water) are combined and steam stripped to recover the aniline, the
stripped water, containing not more than 30 ppm aniline or 20 ppm cyclo-hexylamine, being discharged to drain.