The kinetics of ethylene epoxidation network were studied experimentally over a cesium-doped
silver catalyst supported on α-Al2O3 pellets in a differential reactor. A variety of rate functions
were considered and among these, expressions based on a dual-site Langmuir−Hinselwood
mechanism: r
i = k
i
P
E
/(1 +
P
E)2, fitted the data best with an average error of 13.0 and
10.7% for the epoxidation and the complete combustion reactions, respectively. Under the
experimental conditions, both reactants influence both reaction rates; however, product influence
is negligible because of their small partial pressures present in the reactor. High oxygen/ethylene
ratios and lower temperature favored selectivity to the epoxidation reaction. The kinetic
parameters obtained from the differential reactor experiments were refined to match the fixed-bed reactor experiments. With this, the average error in predicting both ethylene conversion
and selectivity to ethylene oxide was 4.3%. The apparent activation energies for the epoxidation
and combustion reactions were 60.7 and 73.2 kJ/mol, respectively.