EXPERIMENTAL-STUDY OF THE SELECTIVE HYDROGENATION OF STEAM CRACKING C-2 CUT - FRONT-END AND TAIL END VARIANTS

Selective hydrogenation is the habitual industrial process to eliminat e the most unsaturated hydrocarbons, which are harmful for later appli cations. Zn this paper, the kinetics of the selective hydrogenation of a C-2 mixture over two palladium/alumina catalysts with both front en d and tail end variants, have been studied. Experiments have been carr ied out to analyse the influence of temperature, hydrogen/acetylene mo lar ratio, carbon monoxide content in the feed and hydrocarbon volumet ric flow rate on the corresponding conversion and selectivity. The exp eriments were performed in an integral plug how reactor and the integr al method was used for the kinetic analysis. The minimization of the o bjective function was made by the Marquardt algorithm for multiple res ponse and the continuity equation set integrated by fourth order Runge -Kutta technique. The most adequate models were the power law type for the experimental range. The comparison between experimental and obser ved values of the acetylene and ethane molar fraction in the hydrocarb on mixture, which are used for minimization, confirm the suitability o f the fit.