Estimation of the catalyst pellet activity distribution from zero order kinetic data

Abstract

In this paper a method of simultaneous estimation of the catalyst pellet activity distribution, the mean reaction rate constant, and the diffusion coefficient from kinetic data is described. As kinetic data measurements of outlet concentration from laboratory continuous stirred tank reactor vs feed rate for zero order reaction is used. The estimation technique is verified on simulated data. The mean reaction rate constant is estimated from the region of investigated dependence in which reactant penetrates into the whole catalyst pellet. The value of the effective diffusion coefficient and the activity distribution are estimated from the regime in which the reactant penetrates into the part of the pellet only.