In this process, a mixed-vapor feed of phenol and ammonia is pre-heated and passed over a fixed catalyst

bed reactor (R-101) at 370 C and 1.7 MPa using a Silica- Alumina catalyst. The two feed streams are
pumped to a pressure of 255 psia before they are mixed with their respective recycle streams (stream 6
and stream 17). Ammonia recycle (stream 6) has small amounts of hydrogen, nitrogen and water. The
phenol recycle consists of phenol, aniline and diphenylamine. The cooling of the reactor effluent begins
with the cross exchanger (E-100) which cools stream 10 by about 500 F. The purification of aniline begins
with the column D-100. The pressure at the top of the column is 220 psia and the pressure at the bottom is
222.5 psia. The distillate (stream 5) is composed of ammonia and water. The components lighter than
ammonia will also appear in the distillate. Therefore, all of the hydrogen and nitrogen will go to stream 5.
From the column D-100, stream 5 goes to a splitter. The splitter sends 98.9% of the stream to stream 6,
which is the ammonia recycle stream. The splitter also sends 1.1% of stream 5 to the gaseous purge,
stream 7. The purge is necessary to avoid any pressure build-up in the process. Stream 7 is a non-product
stream, but it is used as fuel for the heater. The bottoms stream (stream 8) is one of the feeds to the next
column. The second column in the purification section is the drying column (D-101). The pressure at the top
of the column is 15 psia, and the pressure at the bottom of the column stage is 21.25 psia. The key
components are water and phenol. However, some aniline is lost in the distillate because aniline is soluble
in water. The distillate contains 99.99% of the water, 6% of the phenol and 5% of the aniline fed to the
column. The distillate, stream 9, is cooled by E-103 to a temperature of 110 F with a pressure of 10 psia.
Stream 10 is then sent to a three-phase separator (V-100) to separate the aqueous product and the liquid
(organic) product. The organic product (stream 12) is recycled to the column. Stream 12 consists of 7% of
the ammonia, 3% of the water, 30.5% of the phenol and 86% of the aniline in stream 20. Because stream
12 is below the pressure of the top stage pressure, P-102 is used to bring the pressure in stream 23 up to
15 psia. The aqueous product (stream 11) from V-100 is a non-product output stream. This stream will be
sent through wastewater treatment and released off-site. The bottoms stream (stream 13) is the feed to the
next column.

The final column is the product column (D-102). The pressure at the top of the column is 2.707 psia, while
the pressure at the bottom of the column is 21.46 psia. Due to a high-boiling azeotrope between phenol
and aniline, the main component in the distillate (stream 14) is aniline. Stream 15 contains all of the water,
19.5% of the phenol and 92.3% of the aniline from stream 13. Stream 15 must be at least 99 wt% aniline
for industrial use. Because there is a 10 psia pressure drop for liquids in coolers, stream 14 needs to be
pumped up to a pressure of 12.71 psia by P-104. The resulting stream (stream 14) is cooled by E-104.
Stream 15, a product stream, emerges from the cooler at 90o F and 2.707 psia. The azeotrope between
phenol and aniline is recycled. This azeotrope (stream 17) contains 33 wt% phenol, 65 wt% aniline and 2
wt% diphenylamine. These weight percents account for 80% of the phenol, 7.7% of the aniline and 4.6% of
the diphenylamine in stream 13. Stream 17 is below the pressure of stream 2, therefore it is pumped to a
pressure of 255 psia by P-103. Stream 18 emerges at 373o F and 255 psia. The bottoms product (stream
16) consists of 5% of the phenol and 95.4% of the diphenylamine in stream 13. Stream 32 must be at least
95 wt% diphenylamine for industrial use. This stream is then cooled by E-105. Stream 16, a product
stream, emerges from E-105 at 130o F and 11.46 psia. This concludes the description of the aniline
process.