Introductory Remarks

Selective benzene alkylation to cumene using a variety of propylene derived feeds is an important process for production of phenol as a building block in the phenolics derivatives chain leading to products such as high performance polycarbonates. Recent advances in cumene alkylation catalysts will be discussed as well as the development of the highly selective Q-Max^TM process for cumene alkylation that substantially reduces both operating and capital cost while improving the overall cumene product quality.