Catalysts Deactivation: Pilot plant ageing tests and correlation with industrial data

Abstract

The catalyst manufacturer needs reliable tools to evaluate the behaviour of catalysts in commercial units. Pilot tests are useful tools to obtain this knowledge. For practical reasons tests cannot be done in a similar period of time as in industrial units. Therefore it may be necessary to simulate catalyst ageing by an increase of severity of operating conditions. The validity of such results must be checked by comparison with industrial. Only by extensive industrial experience industrial results can be predicted with good reliability. In this paper several examples of accurate correlations between test results and industrial data are given. These examples involve two important catalytic fields: selective hydrogenation of diolefins and catalytic reforming. The deactivation of these types of catalysts is caused by either the presence of potential poisons (sulphur, oligomers,...) orby side reactions on the catalytic surface.