Innovative Reactors for Determining Kinetics of Highly Exothermic Heterogeneous Catalytic Reactions

Abstract

For highly exothermic catalytic reactions particular measures have to be taken for obtaining reliable kinetic and mechanistic information, which has been preferably determined under the prevalence of isothermicity, and which is not disguised by transport processes. If this is true such kinetics can be reliably extrapolated to conditions outside the frame of experimental conditions. To this end various reactor set-ups are presented and their operation is illustrated by some case studies. The temperature-scanning reactor, which is not inherently isothermal, is included since non-isothermicity is not an obstacle to easy kinetic data assessment. Its performance is clarified by estimating kinetic parameters for the ammonia synthesis at elevated pressure using a commercial catalyst. Two types of novel micro-structured reactors are presented which have been applied for two highly exothermic catalytic reactions, i.e., the oxidative dehydrogenation of propane (ODP) and the ammonia oxidation to N2, N2O and NO. These studies served the purpose of getting mechanistic insights into the reaction mechanisms of both reactions, to validate a kinetic scheme for the ODP reaction and to derive the estimates of the respective kinetic parameters. Finally, a reactor for transient experiments in the peak pressure range of 1 to 10 Pa has been used for studying reaction steps related to the catalytic ammonia oxidation under isothermal conditions. Isothermal studies are possible due to the low concentrations of reactants by which any undesired hot spots on the catalyst surface were suppressed. The instrumental arsenal described is an asset for both fundamental as well as applied work in studying exothermic catalytic reactions.