Separation of ethylbenzene from C7+-cut naphtha

A fractional distillation process for separating ethylbenzene (EB) from a feed mixture C7+‐cut naphtha, comprising nonaromatics, BTX, EB, styrene, and C8+ fraction, was used. Primarily, 29.63 wt % EB in the bottom was obtained. Redistillation of the bottom component produced 63.98 wt % EB in the 2nd cut; finally, this cut was used as a feed to distillation process and 83.21 wt % EB was obtained in distillate, and this feed was used directly for dehydrogenation process to produce styrene monomer. All of the distilled fractions were analyzed by gas chromatography instrument. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl PolymSci 102: 2795–2798, 2006