Thermodynamics and kinetics insights into naphthalene hydrogenation over a Ni-Mo catalyst

Abstract

Hydrocracking represents an important process in modern petroleum refining industry, whose performance mainly relies on the identity of catalyst. In this work, we perform a combined thermodynamics and kinetics study on the hydrogenation of naphthalene over a commercialized NiMo/HY catalyst. The reaction network is constructed for the respective production of decalin and methylindane via the intermediate product of tetralin, which could further undergo hydrogenation to butylbenzene, ethylbenzene, xylene, toluene, benzene, methylcyclohexane and cyclohexane. The thermodynamics analysis suggests the optimum operating conditions for the production of monoaromatics are 400 °C, 8.0 MPa, and 4.0 hydrogen/naphthalene ratio. Based on these, the influences of reaction temperature, pressure, hydrogen/naphthalene ratio, and liquid hourly space velocity (LHSV) are investigated to fit the Langmuir-Hinshelwood model. It is found that the higher temperature and pressure while lower LHSV favors monoaromatics production, which is insensitive to the hydrogen/naphthalene ratio. Furthermore, the high consistence between the experimental and simulated data further validates the as-obtained kinetics model on the prediction of catalytic performance over this kind of catalyst.