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Pressure Drop in Packed Bed Reactors

This document discusses a reaction involving the hydrogenation of o-cresol to 2-methylcyclohexanone over a nickel-silica catalyst. Specifically: 1) The reaction is zero-order in o-cresol and first-order in hydrogen with a specific rate constant of 0.05 mol of o-cresol/(kg of catalyst∙min∙atm) at 120°C. 2) The reaction mixture enters the reactor at 10 atm total pressure with a 2/3 hydrogen and 1/3 o-cresol molar feed rate of 40 mol/min. 3) Students are asked to plot reaction rate, concentrations, and pressure as a function of catalyst weight

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21 views1 page

Pressure Drop in Packed Bed Reactors

This document discusses a reaction involving the hydrogenation of o-cresol to 2-methylcyclohexanone over a nickel-silica catalyst. Specifically: 1) The reaction is zero-order in o-cresol and first-order in hydrogen with a specific rate constant of 0.05 mol of o-cresol/(kg of catalyst∙min∙atm) at 120°C. 2) The reaction mixture enters the reactor at 10 atm total pressure with a 2/3 hydrogen and 1/3 o-cresol molar feed rate of 40 mol/min. 3) Students are asked to plot reaction rate, concentrations, and pressure as a function of catalyst weight

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sep2223
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© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Chapter 4 Homework (pressure drop)

Alkylated cyclohexanols are important intermediates in the fragrance and perfume industry.
Recent work has focused on gas-phase catalytic hydrogenation of o-cresol to 2-
methylcyclohexanone, which is then hydrogenated to 2-methylcyclohexanol.

A+2H2 → M

In this problem, we only focus on the first step of the reaction (see above). The reaction on nickel-
silica catalyst was found to be zero-order in o-cresol (A) and 1st order in H2 with a specific rate
constant of 0.05 mol of A/(kg of catalyst. min. atm) at 120 ℃. The reaction mixture enters the
packed-bed reactor at a total pressure of P0 = 10 atm. The molar feed consists of 2/3 H2 and 1/3 c-
cresol (A) at a total molar follow rate of 40 mol/min. The reaction temperature is kept at 120 ℃.

(a) Neglecting pressure drop, plot the rate of reaction of o-cresol and the concentration of each
species as a function of catalyst weight. What is the ratio of the catalyst weight needed to go from
85% to 90% conversion to the weight necessary to achieve the first 5% conversion (to go from 0%
to 5%)?

(b) Accounting for the pressure drop in the packed bed using a value of 𝛼 = 0.01 kg-1, redo part (a)
along with a plot of pressure versus catalyst weight.

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