Ethylene dichloride Operating conditions

The dry gas, still at approximately atmospheric pressure, can be handled safely in mild steel equipment Particularly with membrane cells, which can operate under some positive pressure, the gas, wet or dry, is suitable for some applications. In most cases, however, the next step will be compression. The pressure must be raised to a level sufficient for liquefaction at a reasonable temperature or for direct use as a gas in another process (e.g., the manufacture of ethylene dichloride). Operating conditions and the apparatus used for compression are highly variable and are the subject of Section 9.1.6. 

Whatever the source, 80% or more of the ethylene dichloride produced is directly converted into vinyl chloride [20]. Target conversions are 50% under the usual operating conditions of about 3-4 atm pressure and 500°C to give better than 94% yields of vinyl chloride (Eq. 19.25). 

Copper chloride catalysts are used to operate at lower temperature, and to improve selectivity. Their action mechanism can be explained by the formation of a complex with ethylene, which is then capable of being converted to ethylene dichloride. In these conditions, the usual reaction scheme is as follows ... 

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