In this study, the influence of the addition of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and carbon black (CB) on the graphitization temperature and microstructure of coal tar pitch (CTP) are investigated. X-ray diffraction patterns of carbon residues indicate that minimum interlayer spacing (d 002 ) values are obtained at 2000C for CTP/CNT. Moreover, the Raman spectrum of CTP/CNTs is similar to graphite, and the relative intensity of Raman lines shows that CTP/CB is less graphitized at 2000 C. In addition, scanning electron microscopy images show that when CB is added sample textures tend to disordered morphologies. However, CNTs, not only improve the morphology of CTP, but also act as nuclei for the growth of graphite flaky crystallites. The role of the CTP/CNT interface and the defects of CNTs on the graphitization degree are studied using transmission electron microscopy, and a mechanism for the graphitization of CTP, in the presence of CNTs, is proposed.

-A lumping procedure is developed for obtaining kinetic and thermodynamic parameters of catalytic naphtha reforming. All kinetic and deactivation parameters are estimated from industrial data and thermodynamic parameters are calculated from derived mathematical expressions. The proposed model contains 17 lumps that include the C 6 to C 8+ hydrocarbon range and 15 reaction pathways. Hougen-Watson LangmuirHinshelwood type reaction rate expressions are used for kinetic simulation of catalytic reactions. The kinetic parameters are benchmarked with several sets of plant data and estimated by the SQP optimization method. After calculation of deactivation and kinetic parameters, plant data are compared with model predictions and only minor deviations between experimental and calculated data are generally observed.

In this paper, according to the recent progresses in naphtha reforming technology, dynamic modeling of catalytic naphtha reforming process is studied. The dynamic model is composed of the reforming reaction model, the heat exchanger model, furnace model, which together, are capable to capture the major dynamics that occur in this process system. Kinetic modeling of the reactions of the fixed bed reactors connected in series form the most significant part of the overall simulation effort. MATLAB software in SIMULINK mode is used for dynamic simulation. Hougen-Watson Langmuir-Hinshelwood type reaction rate expressions are used to represent rate of each reaction.The results show models are in fair agreement with the actual operating data.