PROCESS FOR THE EPOXIDATION OF PROPENE

In a process for the epoxidation of propene, comprising the steps of reacting propene with hydrogen peroxide, separating propene oxide and a recovered propene stream from the reaction mixture, separating propane from all or a part of the recovered propene stream in a C3 splitter column, and passing the overhead product stream of the C3 splitter column to the epoxidation step, a propane starting material with a propane fraction of from 0.002 to 0.10 is used, the epoxidation is operated to provide a propane fraction in the reaction mixture of from 0.05 to 0.20 and the C3 splitter column is operated to provide an overhead product stream which comprises a propane fraction of at least 0.04 in order to reduce the size and the energy consumption of the C3 splitter column. 在丙烯环氧化的方法中，包括以下步骤：使丙烯与过氧化氢反应，从反应混合物中分离环氧丙烷和再循环丙烯流，在C3分离塔中从全部或部分再循环丙烯流中分离丙烷，并将C3分离塔塔顶馏出物流引入环氧化步骤，使用丙烷比例为0.002-0.10的丙烯原料，进行环氧化反应，得到其中丙烷比例为0.05-0.20的反应混合物，并且操作C3分离塔以得到包含丙烷比例至少为0.04的塔顶产物流，以减小C3分离塔的尺寸和能耗。