Patent 7829653 was granted and assigned to Eastman Chemical Company on November, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A horizontal trayed reactor operable to facilitate a chemical reaction in a reaction medium flowing therethrough. The reactor can include a plurality of vertically spaced trays disposed within the horizontally elongated vessel shell. The reaction medium can flow in generally opposite directions on vertically adjacent trays so that the reaction medium flows generally back-and-forth through the reactor.