Kinetic study of propane dehydrogenation and catalyst deactivation over Pt-Sn/Al2O3 catalyst

The kinetics of propane dehydrogenation and catalyst deactivation over Pt-Sn/Al₂O₃ catalyst were studied. Performance test runs were carried out in a fixed-bed integral reactor. Using a power-law rate expression for the surface reaction kinetics and independent law for deactivation kinetics, the experimental data were analyzed both by integral and a novel differential method of analysis and the results were compared. To avoid fluctuation of time-derivatives of conversion required for differential analysis, the conversion-time data were first fitted with appropriate functions. While the time-zero and rate constant of reaction were largely insensitive to the function employed, the rate constant of deactivation was much more sensitive to the function form. The advantage of the proposed differential method, however, is that the integration of the rate expression is not necessary which otherwise could be complicated or impossible. It was also found that the reaction is not limited by external and internal mass transfer limitations, implying that the employed kinetics could be considered as intrinsic ones.