Hydrogenation of phenol

Claim 1

In the process for hydrogenating phenol in the presence of hydrogenation catalyst in liquid or vapor phase at temperature of 24° to 400°C., using as starting material phenol having a purity of at least 99.8 percent obtained from fractional distillation of the cumene hydroperoxide decomposition product containing acetol as an impurity, the improvement which comprises: treating said phenol by contact with a polyamine of the formula: ##EQU4## wherein n is an integer from 0 to 4; R 1 , R 2 and R 3 are independently selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, alkyl, aryl, cycloalkyl, aralkyl and alkaryl and R independently at each occurrence is selected from the group of radicals consisting of alkylene, arylene, alkylenearylene, dialkylene, cycloaklyene, dialkylene cycloalkylene, nitrogen containing heterocyclic groups of 5 to 6 carbon atoms, and the lower alkyl substituted, hydroxy substituted and carboxyl substituted derivatives of said radicals to reduce its acetol content to a level of less than 75 ppm prior to hydrogenation.