Patents

The invention discloses a solvent extractive process for simultaneous production of polymer/food-grade hexane and pure benzene from a narrow fraction of naphtha. Process comprises of processing of naphtha fraction in packed bed/tray type extractor with a mixture of polar solvent and water to remove the benzene from naphtha fraction for generating the raffinate containing benzene less than the specified value required in Polymer/Food Grade Hexane (PGH/FGH) and solvent rich extract phase which is processed in an extractive distillation column to get pure benzene and food grade hexane. The bottom stream of extractive distillation is fed to the solvent recovery column for recovery of benzene and solvent. The Raffinate phase from the extractor is fed to the raffinate wash column for removal of solvent using water washing to produce PGH/FGH.