KINETIC STUDY OF THE C₃CUT TAIL END SELECTIVE HYDROGENATION

Abstract

In this paper, the kinetics of the tail end selective hydrogenation of a C, cut over palladized alumina catalyst have been studied. In the absence of finite transport limitations, experiments have been carried out to analyse the influence of methylacetylene (MA) and propadiene (PD) content in the feed, hydrogen/MAPD molar ratio, temperature and space time on the corresponding conversion and selectivity. The main aim of this process is to improve propylene yield by removing MAPD in the propylene rich cut.The experiments were performed in an integral plug flow and the integral method was used for the kinetic analysis. The minimization of the objective function was made by the Marquardt algorithm for multiple response and the continuity equation set integrated by fourth order Runge-Kutta technique.The most adequate models were the power law type for the experimental range. The comparison between experimental and observed values of the MAPD, propylene and propane molar fraction in the hydrocarbon mixture, which were used for the minimization, confirm the suitability of the fit.