Acetone and phenol from cumene (cumene hydroperoxide route, 200 kt/a phenol)

Cumene is oxidised with air to cumene hydroperoxide, concentrated under vacuum and cleaved with sulfuric acid to phenol and acetone; the product is neutralised and fractionated, and alpha-methylstyrene is hydrogenated back to cumene. Concept stage, assumed basis, preliminary gate-to-gate LCI per kg acetone (foreground only).

Calculation maturity: not assessedDesign maturity: Concept (research)Not independently reviewedAromaticsReport a problem with this process
Research outputNot engineering advice and not an approved design: do not use it for construction, operation or safety decisions. What this means

Fresh and recycled cumene is oxidised with compressed air in bubble-column oxidisers (dry oxidation, about 110 C and 500 kPa(a)) to an oxidate of 25 wt% cumene hydroperoxide (CHP); dimethylbenzyl alcohol (DMBA), acetophenone and methanol are the side products. The spent air passes condensers and activated carbon adsorbers, which return cumene. Vacuum flashing concentrates the CHP to 80 wt% and returns the unreacted cumene. Sulfuric acid cleaves the CHP to phenol and acetone and dehydrates most of the DMBA to alpha-methylstyrene (AMS); the rest forms heavies (cumylphenol). Caustic neutralises the acid, and a decanter removes the sodium sulfate brine. Four columns separate crude acetone, product acetone, a cumene/AMS cut, product phenol and a tar of heavies and acetophenone burned as fuel. The AMS is hydrogenated back to cumene on palladium.

All values are concept estimates: the conversion, selectivities and splits are ASSUMED and checked against the ranges of the EU LVOC BREF (2017, chapter 8); the utilities are that document's plant data applied to this design, not calculated. See DESIGN.md for every assumption and gated step.

Capacity
200 kt/a phenol, 126 kt/a acetone (ASSUMED)
Operation
8,000 h/a
Location
generic (not chosen)
Engineering gates
Concept and feasibility (no results yet)
Design basis and assumptions (7)
  • ASSUMED oxidation: dry oxidation with air, 4 bubble columns in series, 368-388 K, 500 kPa(a); CHP 25 wt% at the outlet (BREF: 80-120 C, up to 700 kPa, 17-30 % CHP) (D-003, D-004).
  • ASSUMED oxidation selectivity per kmol cumene converted: CHP 0.94, DMBA 0.05, acetophenone (+ methanol) 0.01; a sourced range check, not kinetics (D-004).
  • ASSUMED concentration to 80 wt% CHP under vacuum (BREF 65-85 %) (D-006).
  • ASSUMED cleavage: CHP fully cleaved; DMBA 75 % dehydrated to AMS, 25 % to cumylphenol (heavies) (D-005).
  • ASSUMED AMS fully hydrogenated back to cumene; hydrogen vent 1 Nm3/t phenol (BREF 0.8-1.2) (D-008).
  • Utilities from BREF LVOC Table 8.5 (one plant data set), not calculated for this design (D-011).
  • Accuracy: concept estimate; no property method qualified for the polar mixture.

From process/design-basis.yaml.

Engineering model

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Drawing of the process (preview)Open the engineering model

The interactive model (drawings, streams, 3D) is made for larger screens.

Snapshot of c3ab348, cheme-as-code 1.6.0.

What goes in and out

In

  • CumeneFeedstockfeed:CUM: fresh cumene, 2.11 kg/kg acetone (1.33 t per t phenol) from a cumene unit
  • Sulfuric acidFeedstockfeed:ACID: sulfuric acid 98 wt% (cleavage catalyst), counted by mass of the acid
  • Sodium hydroxideFeedstockfeed:NAOH50: caustic soda 50 wt% (e.g. chlor-alkali-1), counted by mass of the solution
  • AirReactantOxidation air, 1.92 kg per kg phenol
  • HydrogenReactantAMS hydrogenation to cumene; from hydrogen-1 or a site header
  • WaterFeedstockWash water to the neutraliser (ASSUMED)

Out

  • AcetoneMain productAcetone product (the functional unit's product)
  • PhenolCo-productPhenol product, 1.59 kg/kg acetone
  • WastewaterWasteNeutralisation brine and acetone column bottoms
  • AirEmissionSpent air (5 mol% O2) after condensers and carbon adsorbers

Utilities: Electricity (190 kWh/t phenol (LVOC BREF Table 8.5); air compressor about 57 %), Steam (LP steam 500 kPa(a), CHP concentration), Steam (MP steam 1800 kPa(a), fractionation reboilers), Cooling water (25/35 C (ASSUMED))

Show in the process graph

Reactions

IdAs writtenReactionOther processes
AMS_HYDC9H10 + H2 → C9H12 (alpha-methylstyrene to cumene)C9H10+H2C9H12
CLEAVAGEC9H12O2 → C6H6O + C3H6O (acid-catalysed Hock cleavage)C9H12O2C6H6O+C3H6O
DMBA_DEHYDC9H12O → C9H10 + H2O (DMBA to alpha-methylstyrene)C9H12OC9H10+H2O
HEAVIESC9H12O + C6H6O → C15H16O + H2O (DMBA with phenol to cumylphenol, the heavies surrogate)C9H12O+C6H6OC15H16O+H2O
NEUTRALISATIONH2SO4 + 2 NaOH → Na2SO4 + 2 H2OH2SO4+2NaOHNa2SO4+2H2O2 other processes
OX_ACPC9H12 + O2 → C8H8O + CH3OH (acetophenone and methanol, net)C9H12+O2C8H8O+CH4O
OX_CHPC9H12 + O2 → C9H12O2 (cumene hydroperoxide)C9H12+O2C9H12O2
OX_DMBAC9H12 + 1/2 O2 → C9H12O (dimethylbenzyl alcohol, net of CHP decomposition)2C9H12+O22C9H12O

Each reaction's page has the conversion, heat of reaction, catalyst and sources this process states, next to those of other processes with the same reaction. All reactions

Life cycle assessment

No footprint assessed yet; the process is part of the life-cycle inventory below.

In the open LCI database (cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-c3ab348) as Acetone product Preliminary; Phenol product Preliminary.

Download it for Brightway, openLCA and other tools.

In the LCI database: system model, datasets and KPIs against the benchmarks

In the LCI database

Status
Preliminary 2 unmapped exchanges. Some exchanges have no background mapping yet: they are exported unlinked and count no burden, so the inventory is incomplete.
System model
attributional, cut-off (methodology 1.1.0)
Allocation
mass (deviation, from study) · product:ACETONE 38.6 %, product:PHENOL 61.4 %
Allocation findings
none
Change report
Not available: this build has no change report against an earlier release.
Dataset pages
Acetone product Preliminary · Phenol product Preliminary

KPI benchmark positions: not available (no benchmarked KPI for this process's datasets).

Maturity and review

Design maturity Concept (claimed): An idea or first flowsheet; numbers are rough. Concept PFD (5 blocks, 15 steps) with closed mass, component and element balances (cheme validate, cheme process streams: every block and step within 1 kg/h); the oxidiser, cleavage, neutraliser and hydrogenation outlets are calculated by cheme from conversion and selectivity specifications, every separator is specified (scripts/balance.py). Fresh cumene 1.330 t/t phenol and tar 47 kg/t phenol fall inside the LVOC BREF ranges (1.31-1.38 t/t; 20-200 kg/t); steam and power are that document's plant data (Table 8.5), not a calculation. No energy balance: no property package covers the polar mixture. cheme maturity reaches no level. The LCI is foreground only, every background a gap (13 gaps): no impact result (lca.source none). Not reviewed. Main products and feeds are listed under chemistry with their chemicals registry entries (issue #251).

Calculation maturity, from the checked evidenceNot assessed

The process has no maturity report (cheme maturity, checks/maturity.json), so no calculation maturity is established.

No level shownThe design maturity (Concept) is the manifest's claim, not evidence. A level appears here once the process's repository holds a current report from cheme maturity --write.

Artifact completeness

Which deliverables exist. They never raise a calculation maturity level: a drawing from unchecked numbers is still unchecked.

Not reported without a maturity report.

Independent review

Not independently reviewed

No independent engineering review yet. Automated checks passing is not a review.

Set by people only. Reaching a calculation maturity level or passing automated checks is not an independent review or an approval.

Where the evidence comes from
Report
processes/acetone-1/checks/maturity.json (not in the library)
Design basis
process/design-basis.yaml
Method
How ChemE-as-Code checks the levels (requirement by requirement)

Open items

0 open items · 0 closed

New action itemNew engineering holdNew technical queryNew design changeAll issues

Sources

Engineering project
Acetone and phenol (cumene process) · cheme-as-code>=0.8
Library version
c3ab348 (process last changed in c3ab348)
Drawings rendered by
cheme 1.6.0 (pyDEXPI 2.1.0)
Data
Catalog record (JSON) · CC-BY-4.0
Files
View the files on GitHub · change history and authors

References

How to cite

For the data, cite the Process Atlas paper; for the platform that builds and checks it, the ChemE-as-Code paper.

Schweidtmann, A. M. & Weber, J. M. (2026, in preparation). Process Atlas: an open, git-native, reproducible library and life cycle inventory of chemical processes (working title).

For this process: "Acetone and phenol from cumene (cumene hydroperoxide route, 200 kt/a phenol)", ChemE-as-Code process library, version c3ab348.

BibTeX
@unpublished{schweidtmann_process_atlas,
  author = {Schweidtmann, Artur M. and Weber, Jana M.},
  title = {{Process Atlas: an open, git-native, reproducible library and life cycle inventory of chemical processes (working title)}},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://atlas.cheme-as-code.org},
  note = {in preparation}
}

Schweidtmann, A. M. (2026, in preparation). ChemE-as-Code: An Open-Source Platform for AI-Accelerated Chemical Process Engineering (working title).

BibTeX
@unpublished{schweidtmann_cheme_as_code,
  author = {Schweidtmann, Artur M.},
  title = {{ChemE-as-Code: An Open-Source Platform for AI-Accelerated Chemical Process Engineering (working title)}},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://cheme-as-code.org},
  note = {in preparation}
}