Process for preparing tertiary alkyl ethers

Claim 1

A process for reacting an isoolefin with an alkyl alcohol in the presence of a catalyst to produce the corresponding tertiary alkyl ether, said catalyst comprised of a sulphated styrene-divinylbenzene resin, said process comprising the steps of: a. providing a plate fractionating column reactor containing at least five fractionating reaction zones, each reaction zone being serially connected to the next successive reaction zone via a pathway which is contiguous to the reaction zones connected via said pathway, at least two of said reaction zones also containing a fixed bed of said catalyst, each of the reaction zones containing a fixed bed of said catalyst being separated from another by at least one reaction zone not containing a fixed bed of said catalyst; b. causing liquid in said reactor to flow along a preselected flow path in a downward direction through said reaction zones not containing a fixed bed of catalyst and through said pathways and in an upwards direction through said reaction zones containing a fixed bed of said catalyst. c. causing gas vapors fractioned from said liquid to flow in an upwards direction through said reaction zones; d. introducing said alcohol into the upper end of said column reactor into said flow path at a location above the uppermost of said reaction zones containing a fixed bed of said catalyst; e. introducing a hydrocarbon feed containing said isoolefin into said column reactor into said flow path; f. reacting said isoolefin with said alcohol in the liquid phase in each of said reaction zones containing a fixed bed of said catalyst to form said ether product, each fixed bed of said catalyst being immersed in liquid containing said alcohol, said gas vapors produced in the reaction zones located below each bed of said catalyst bubbling upwards therethrough; g. separating said ether product from the unreacted hydrocarbon feed in each of said fractionating reaction zones to obtain a substantially pure form of said ether product; h. removing said substantially pure form of said ether product from the bottom of said column reactor; and i. removing the unreacted hydrocarbon feed from the top of said column reactor.