Abstract: A process for co-production of paraxylene, metaxylene and/or orthoxylene from a hydrocarbon feedstock (1) that comprises [1] a separation stage of the feedstock in a simulated moving bed in a chromatographic column (9) that contains a number of beds of an adsorbent, interconnected in a loop, is described, whereby said column comprises an injection (3) of the feedstock, a draw-off (10) of an extract that consists of paraxylene and desorbent, an intermediate fraction (11) (extract or raffinate) that contains ethylbenzene, and a raffinate (12) that contains a mixture of metaxylene and orthoxylene that is virtually free of ethylbenzene and paraxylene and [2] a crystallization stage (27) of the metaxylene and/or orthoxylene fraction. Upstream from the adsorption zone and/or upstream from the crystallization zone, it is possible to distill the entering mixture to produce an orthoxylene-enriched fraction at the bottom and a metaxylene-enriched fraction at the top.

Abstract: A process is described for co-producing metaxylene and paraxylene from a hydrocarbon feed comprising two separation steps. The first step of the process is a counter-current simulated moving bed system in a chromatographic column containing at least five zones, comprising injecting the feed and injecting a desorbent and delivering an extract, a raffinate and an intermediate raffinate either continuously or discontinuously. The extract is distilled to obtain a paraxylene with a purity of at least 99.7%. The raffinate, which is richer in metaxylene, is distilled to extract the desorbent and injected into a counter-current simulated moving bed continuously delivering an extract and a raffinate. One of these two streams is enriched in metaxylene. The most metaxylene-rich stream is distilled to obtain metaxylene with a purity of more than 99%.