Abstract: Under certain operating conditions, an emulsion of an acidified unfiltrable tarry bottoms stream from a reactor for the chlorination of ethylene to 1,2-dichloroethane can be demulsified and separated in a phase separation tank. The presence of FeCl.sub.3 in an amount more than 5 ppm Fe in the separated organic waste, fouls the reboiler and lower internals of a "heavies" column in which the separated organic waste is concentrated, and deactivates the catalyst in a Catoxid fluid bed reactor in which the concentrate is burned. By maintaining an iron salt chlorination catalyst in a concentration which results in 2000 ppm to 4000 ppm of Fe in the HTC reactor bottoms, and operating the HTC reactor at a temperature in the range from about 90.degree. C. to 120.degree. C. and a pressure in the range from 9 psig to 12 psig, an unfiltrable reactor bottoms drawoff is produced which may be acidified without forming an emulsion.

Abstract: Ferric chloride (FeCl.sub.3), a known chlorination and polymerization catalyst for 1,3-butadiene ("BD"), can nevertheless be effectively used in a packed or trayed quench tower, operating under essentially anhydrous conditions, without plugging it. Essentially all BD from a crude stream of vinyl chloride (VCl), is removed within a hold-up time of 6 minutes. The speed of removal is note-worthy because less than half the stoichiometric amount of chlorine required to chlorinate the BD is used. The BD is preferentially chlorinated, the time being too short to chlorinate a substantial amount of chloroprene and monovinylacetylene. Only a portion of the BD is removed by chlorination, the remainder being removed by polymerization catalyzed by 100-200 ppm anhydrous FeCl.sub.3.