METHOD FOR PRODUCING ALKYL AROMATIC COMPOUNDS

Production of alkylaromatic compounds (I), by reacting 3-30C olefins (II) (or alcohols forming (II) under the reaction conditions) with aromatic hydrocarbons (III) in presence of an alkylation catalyst (IV), is carried out in a cascade of at least two reactors each containing (IV), where at least 80 % of (III) is supplied to the first reactor of the cascade and at least 40 % of (II) is supplied after the first reactor. An independent claim is included for the preparation of alkylarylsulfonates (A), by: (1) converting a 4C olefin mixture over a metathesis catalyst to give an olefin mixture containing 2-pentene and/or 2-hexene; (2) catalytically dimerizing the 2-pentene and/or 2-hexene (optionally after isolation) to give a mixture containing 10-12C olefins, optionally separating the 10-12C olefins and separating 5-30 wt. % (based on the 10-12C olefins) of low-boiling components of the 10-12C olefins; (3) reacting the obtained 10-12C olefin mixture with (III) in presence of (IV) to give alkylaromatic compounds (I'), optionally with addition of 0-60 wt. % (based on the 10-12C olefin mixture) of linear olefins before the reaction; (4) sulfonating (I') and neutralizing to give (A), optionally with addition of 0-60 wt. % (based on (I')) of linear alkylbenzenes (provided that no mixing has been carried out in the previous step); and (5) optionally mixing the obtained (A) with optionally with addition of 0-60 wt. % (based on (A)) of linear aralkylsulfonates (provided that no mixing has been carried out either of the previous two steps); The novel feature being that the reaction in the alkylation stage (3) is carried out as for the present procedure for preparing (I).