Optimal operation of a catalytic tubular reactor with fouling catalyst by coke deposition

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Abstract The dehydrogenation of isopentane over chromia-alumina catalyst has been carried out at three isothermal levels. The catalyst fouling and the deposited coke profiles were observed in a catalytic tubular reactor. A kinetic model is proposed and the kinetic parameters have been estimated by non linear regression methods. For the dehydrogenation with catalyst fouling, the problem of finding the isothermal optimal control was formulated by a distributed maximum principle and a computational algorithm using a quasi-steady state assumption was presented. The dehydrogenation of isopentane was carried out experimentally at the evaluated isothermal optimal temperature. The observed conversion, yields and coke content profiles agreed with the evaluated ones fairly well, which suggests that the kinetic model may be useful for optimal controls.