| abstract |
A process for producing (meth)acrylic acid and (meth)acrylic esters comprising the steps of: (A) reacting propane, propylene, or isobutylene, and/or (meth)acrolein, with molecular oxygen or a molecular oxygen-containing gas via a gas phase catalytic oxidation method to produce crude (meth)acrylic acid; (B) purifying the resulting crude (meth)acrylic acid to produce a (meth)acrylic acid product; and (C) reacting crude (meth)acrylic acid with alcohol to produce (meth)acrylic esters, in case of shutdown of a plant used in any of steps (B) and (C) arranged in parallel with each other. the other, a resulting surplus crude (meth)acrylic acid is temporarily stored in a tank, and after restoring the stopped plant, the crude (meth)acrylic acid stored in a tank is fed to the plant used in step (B) and /or the plant used in step (C), while a production capacity of the plant used in step (A) is designed to be less than a total consumption capacity of the plants used in steps (B) and (C). |