Process for producing high purity formaldehyde

摘要

A process for producing formaldehyde having high purity is disclosed, which comprises: (A) feeding crude formaldehyde containing water and methanol to the middle or lower part of a distillation column, and feeding a polyalkylene oxide compound which is inert to formaldehyde to the upper part of the column in an amount at least 10 times the total weight of the water and methanol contained in the crude formaldehyde; (B) carrying out distillation; and (C) recovering purified formaldehyde gas from the top of the column while withdrawing a solution containing the polyalkylene oxide compound, water and methanol from the bottom of the column. Using this process, formaldehyde having stable high purity can be obtained continuously through simplified steps at low cost.