Optimal Design of a Trickle Bed Reactor for Light Fuel Oxidative Desulfurization Based on Experiments and Modeling

In this work, the performance of oxidative desulfurization (ODS) of dibenzothiophene (DBT) in light gas oil (LGO) is evaluated with a homemade manganese oxide (MnO2/gamma-Al2O3) catalyst. The catalyst is prepared by the incipient wetness impregnation (IWI) method with air under moderate operating conditions. The effect of different reaction parameters such as reaction temperature, liquid hour space velocity, and initial concentration of DBT is also investigated experimentally. For developing a detailed and validated trickle bed reactor (TBR) process model that can be employed for design and optimization of the ODS process, it is important to develop kinetic models for the relevant reactions with high accuracy. The best kinetic model for the ODS process taking into account hydrodynamic factors (mainly, catalyst effectiveness factor, catalyst wetting efficiency, and internal diffusion) and the physical properties affecting the oxidation process is developed utilizing data from pilot plant experiments. An optimization technique based upon the minimization of the sum Of the squared error between the experimental and predicted composition of oxidation process is used to determine the best parameters of the kinetic models. The predicted product conversion showed very good agreement with the experimental data for a wide range of operating conditions with absolute average errors less than 5%.