Modeling of Coke Formation and Catalyst Deactivation in Propane Dehydrogenation Over a Commercial Pt-Sn/γ-Al2O3 Catalyst

Propane dehydrogenation was carried over a commercial Pt-Sn/-Al2O3 catalyst at atmospheric pressure and reaction temperatures of 580, 600, and 620 degrees C and WHSV of 11 h(-1) in an experimental tubular quartz reactor. Propane conversions were measured for catalyst time on stream of up to nine days. The amounts of coke deposited on the catalyst were measured after one, three, six, and nine days on stream using a thermogravimetric differential thermal analyzer (TG-DTA) for each reaction temperature. The coke formation kinetics was successfully described by a coke formation model based on a monolayer-multilayer mechanism. In addition, catalyst deactivation was presented by a time-dependant deactivation function. The kinetic order for monolayer coke formation was found to be two, which would support a coke formation step involving two active sites. The kinetic order for multilayer coke formation was found to be zero. The activation energy for monolayer coke formation was found to be 29.1 kJ/mol, which was lower than the activation energy of about 265.1 kJ/mol for multilayer coke formation indicating that the presence of metals can promote coke formation on the catalyst surface.