OP-II-3

PP-II-49DEHYDROGENATION OF PROPANE-ISOBUTANE MIXTUREIN A FLUIDIZED BED REACTOR OVER Cr 2 O 3 /Al 2 O 3 CATALYST:EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES AND MATHEMATICAL MODELLINGVernikovskaya N.V. 1,2 , Savin I.G. 3 , Kashkin V.N. 1 , Pakhomov N.A. 1,2 ,Ermakova A. 1 , Molchanov V.V. 1 , Nemykina E.I. 1 , Parahin O.A. 41 Boreskov Institute of Catalysis SB RAS, Novosibirsk 630090, Russia2 Novosibirsk State University, Novosibirsk 630090, Russia3 JSC ”Tobolsk-Neftehim”, Tobolsk, Russia4 JSC “NPK Sintez”, Barnaul, Russia, E-mail: vernik@catalysis.ruThe processes of hydrocarbons dehydrogenation play an important role in theworld industry of olefins production. Using fluid bed technology for hydrocarbonsdehydrogenation at subatmospheric pressure has definite advantages, such as lowcapital and operation cost, relatively simple reactor design, continuous operation andeasy process control. Fluid bed technology is successfully applied at industrial scaleprimarily for isobutene and isopentene production in Russian Federation and SaudiArabia. In case of isobutene production fluid bed reactor productivity varies greatlyand depends on the MTBE market demands, because isobutene produced is usedfurther in MTBE synthesis. So, to maximize olefins productivity addition of anotherparaffin at the fluid bed reactor inlet looks attractive. Propane seems to be the mostsuitable co-feed because propene is widely used for polypropylene production.Main goal of the present study was to predict the effect of addition of propane tothe inlet reactor feed on the industrial fluid bed reactor performance.Catalyst. A modified sample of industrial fluid bed Cr 2 O 3 /Al 2 O 3 catalyst “KDM”(which is commercially produced by JSC “NPK Sintez”, Russia) was prepared byincipient wetness impregnation of gibbsite thermal activation product [1] with anaqueous solution of CrO 3 with KOH and ZrO 2 additives [2].Fixed bed reactor experiments and kinetics investigation. Study of thekinetics of propane-isobutane dehydrogenation was carried out using a fixed bedreactor. The reactor was a 12-mm-i.d., 130-mm-long quartz tube placed inside asand bath. The reactor was equipped by thermocouples inside a thermowell of 6-mmo.d. installed at the reactor axis. The mixture of 0.08-0.12 mm-i.d. catalyst diluted byquartz sand was loaded into the reactor. The next operation conditions were varied:temperature, feed space velocity, propane: isobutane volume ratio, hydrogenconcentration. The data obtained in the fixed bed reactor were fitted by Langmuir-422