Defining appropriate reaction scheme for hydrotreating of vegetable oil through proper calculation of kinetic parameters

Kinetic models reported in the literature were used to derive a new general kinetic model for the hydrotreating of vegetable oils. The proposed model includes ten reaction rate coefficients, three more than the literature models. Experimental data obtained at 360 degrees C with a CoMo/Al2O3 catalyst and at 420 degrees C with a NiW/SiO2-Al2O3 catalyst were used for model validations. A series of statistical tools and sensitivity analysis were applied to find the best set of kinetic parameters that assured the convergence to the global minimum of the objective function. To carry out a fair comparison of kinetic models due to the different number of parameters, the Akaike and Bayesian criteria were used. It was found that some reaction pathways that were omitted by the literature models have significant reaction rates, so that the proposed model exhibits better performance.