Abstract: A process for the recovery of a low concentration of ethylene oxide from an aqueous solution comprising salts, ethylene oxide and glycol which comprises the steps of:(1) passing the aqueous solution comprising salts and ethylene oxide through a hydrolyzing zone at elevated temperature and elevated pressure for a sufficient length of time to insure the conversion of at least the greater portion of the ethylene oxide to glycols to obtain a dilute aqueous glycol solution;(2) passing the dilute aqueous glycol solution through at least one flasher, wherein water is evaporated in the form of steam thereby producing at the bottom of the (last) flasher a solid-liquid two-phase slurry stream comprising salt-containing solids and a liquid phase comprising glycol, salt and water;(3) sending said slurry-containing stream coming out of the (last) flasher to a centrifuge and centrifuging such stream to produce a solid phase and a liquid phase; and(4) passing said centrifuged liquid phase to a flasher wherein glycols are se

Abstract: In a process for the direct oxidation of ethylene to ethylene oxide, ethylene is recovered from normally vented gas by contacting first with an activated carbon adsorbent then by pressure swing adsorption with a zeolitic molecular sieve adsorbent.

Abstract: An improved ethylene oxide process whereby residual heat is recovered from the reactor coolant by generating steam. The improvement enables the plant to operate using an improved silver-based catalyst with lower optimum operating temperature than that of the alumina-supported silver catalyst for which the plant was designed. The process comprises the steps of passing the coolant from the reactor to at least one first coolant condenser(s) wherein at least part of the coolant vapor is condensed by exchanging heat with boiler feed water to generate steam.

Abstract: An improved evaporation process for accomplishing the separation of a solution into its volatile and non-volatile components. The improvement over conventional evaporation, according to which the solution is fed to a calandria where it is heated and partially vaporized and the resulting calandria vapor stream is subjected to vapor-liquid separation for the removal of entrainment, relates to the practice of an additional and intermediate step in which the calandria vapor is contacted with the feed solution.