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2020
Rijo, B, Lemos F, Fonseca I, Vilelas A.  2020.  Development of a model for an industrial acetylene hydrogenation reactor using plant data – Part I. Chemical Engineering Journal. 379:122390. AbstractWebsite

In this work, a dynamic model of an industrial acetylene hydrogenation reactor with a front-end configuration was developed, based on plant operation data. This type of reactor operates in transient state, not only due to the natural fluctuations in operating conditions but also due to the effects caused by the deactivation of the catalyst. To develop the dynamic model of the acetylene hydrogenation reactor a thorough study of the effect of operating conditions was performed; the influence of variables such as the inlet temperature of the 1st reactor, the flowrate, carbon monoxide concentration, on the activity, selectivity and stability of the catalyst was examined by choosing adequate periods of the operation of the reactor. To understand the reaction mechanism of this system, several published kinetics were tested but only one was finally fitted to the industrial data, to interpret the operation of the acetylene hydrogenation reactor. A set of operation periods was used to develop the model which was then validated by applying the model to a different set of operation periods. As a conclusion, the dynamic model that was developed and validated, using actual plant operation data, was able to adequately describe the outlet temperatures of the three reactors in the system as well as the outlet acetylene concentration of the 3rd reactor.