BigPatents India

A process for the production of vinyl acetate, said process comprising the steps of: (a) introducing ethylene, acetic acid and an oxygen containing gas into a reactor (b) reacting said ethylene, acetic acid, and oxygen-containing gas in the presence of a catalyst material in said reactor to produce vinyl acetate at a pressure of between 5x 104 Pa gauge (0.5 barg) and 2 x106 Pa gauge (20 barg); (c) withdrawing from said reactor gases comprising unreacted ethylene, vinyl acetate, carbon dioxide by-product and inert gases such as nitrogen and/or argon; (d) recovering from the gases withdrawn from said reactor unreacted ethylene optionally together with minor amounts of said carbon dioxide and inert gases; and (e) introducing the recovered ethylene from step (d) and additional ethylene to said reactor in step (a) characterized in that the amount of ethylene in the combined feed to the reactor is from 72 mol% up to 85 mol%