Process for the preparation of mtbe

Claim 1

A process for the production of methyl tertiary butyl ether from a substantially pure stream of isobutylene, comprising: (a) feeding a first stream comprising an inert C 4 hydrocarbon to a distillation column reactor into a feed zone; (b) after reflux of the first stream has been established terminating said first stream and concurrently feeding a second stream comprising substantially pure isobutylene and a third stream comprising methanol to said distillation column reactor into said feed zone; (c) concurrently in said distillation column reactor: (i) contacting said isobutylene with said methanol in a reaction distillation zone in the presence of an acid cation exchange resin in the form of a catalytic distillation structure thereby reacting a majority of said isobutylene with methanol to form methyl tertiary butyl ether, and (ii) fractionating the resultant mixture in said reaction distillation zone whereby unreacted methanol, unreacted isobutylene and inert C 4 hydrocarbons are recovered as overheads and methyl tertiary butyl ether, methanol and minor amounts of unreacted isobutylene and inert C 4 hydrocarbon are recovered as bottoms; (d) condensing substantially all of said overheads and returning substantially all of said condensed overheads to said distillation column as reflux; and (e) adding make up inert C 4 hydrocarbon from said first stream as necessary only to replace that incidentally removed.