Gas Phase Cracking of Dicyclopentadiene to Produce Cyclopentadiene

The process of producing high-purity cyclopentadiene (CPD) has been investigated, including a gas phase thermal cracking process of dicyclopentadiene (DCPD) in the presence of H2 on a continuous bed reactor and batch distillation for the further separation. Factors including cracking temperature, reaction time, and H2 to DCPD ratios were studied. Results show that the optimal cracking conditions of DCPD are cracking temperature 320°C, reaction time up to 4 s, and H2 to DCPD ratio varied within 30–50. For the batch distillation, the satisfactory results obtained allow using the batch distillation for the further operation to product high-purity CPD in 99.32%.