STUDIES IN DEALKYLATION-DEVELOPMENT OF A REACTION RATE MODEL

Abstract

A reaction rate model was proposed for the dealkylation of isomers of xylene and ethylbemene based on the model building techniques and the model was tested using the calculated parametric values.

Dcalkylation of the isomers of xylene and ethylbenzene was studied with the initial concentration of hydrocarbon, initial concentration of hydrogen and reaction temperature as the three variables in the factorial design of experiments. At each of these design points data were obtained which formed the basis for the initial estimates for further calculations. An iterative procedure was followed to obtain the final values of the parameters. From these values, the activation energy and frequency factor for each system were estimated. These were found to be in good agreement with the reported values, thereby establishing the validity of the rate model.