To provide a purification process excellent in terms of equipment and economy and capable of recovering a high-purity lower alcohol in a single stage treatment using neither water nor steam when an ester-contg. lower alcohol is to be purified with alkali treatment.
This purification process comprises as follows: an alkaline solution dissolved in a lower alcohol to be purified is fed from a pipe 1 to the bottom of a continuous multistage distillation column 2; an ester-contg. crude lower alcohol is fed from a pipe 3 to the bottom of the distillation column 2 at such a flow rate as to afford a given residence time; the lower alcohol, as distillate from the overhead of the distillation column 2, is purified into the ester-free corresponding high-purity lower alcohol, part thereof being returned via a heat exchanger 4 to the distillation column 2 and the rest being recovered continuously; the precipitate at the bottom resulted from the alkali treatment is discharged, together with bottom liquor, after ending the operation.
TAMAOKI SEIJI
HIRAMATSU SHINOBU
