INTRINSIC KINETICS AND INDUSTRIAL REACTORS MODELING FOR THE DEHYDROGENATION OF ETHYLBENZENE TO STYRENE ON PROMOTED IRON-OXIDE CATALYSTS

in this preliminary investigation two approaches are used to obtain intrinsic kinetics for the catalytic dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene to styrene on different promoted iron oxide catalysts: (1) A rigorous heterogeneous model based on the dusty gas model for the catalyst pellets is used to extract intrinsic kinetics from the data of an industrial reactor. (2) A pseudohomogeneous model is used to extract intrinsic kinetics from the results of a laboratory fixed bed reactor packed with in-house prepared powder catalysts with negligible diffusional resistances. The extracted intrinsic kinetics were used in the heterogeneous model to simulate the industrial reactor and the results for the three in-house prepared catalysts are compared with those of the industrial reactor.