Propane dehydrogenation over a Cr2O3/Al2O3 catalyst:: transient kinetic modeling of propene and coke formation

The kinetics of propane dehydrogenation to produce propene over a Cr2O3/Al2O3 catalyst has been investigated over the temperature range of 525-575 degreesC at atmospheric pressure. The reaction rate of coke formation and its influence over catalyst deactivation has been studied. A Langmuir-Hinshelwood mechanism provides the best fit for the reaction, while a monolayer-multilayer mechanism is proposed to model the coke growth. Furthermore, this model was able to predict coke formation under conditions far from those employed in the experiments used to obtain the kinetics. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.