Kinetics of low-temperature catalytic combustion of ethylene at wet conditions for postharvest storage applications

The study addresses the reduction of ethylene levels in postharvest storage applications using a Pd-Zn-Sn/TiO2 catalyst, which is capable of reacting trace concentrations of ethylene at temperatures as low as 278 K and at relative humidity as high as 90%. The rate law is derived from data collected using a constant volume batch reactor and a model for a storage room with associated packed bed reactor is developed. The amount of catalyst required to maintain an ethylene concentration of 0.1 ppmv in a room containing 20 tons of fruit having an ethylene metabolism of 0.1 ul/kg hr was calculated as a function of air temperature and water content. While the catalyst is capable of continuously removing ethylene from saturated, refrigerated air, the amount of catalyst required can be reduced significantly by incorporating conventional air conditioning solutions upstream of the catalyst bed. Such combined systems and their functions are discussed

Modelling and performance analysis for cumene production process in a four-layer packed bed reactor

A mathematical model is developed and designed for the cumene reactor in cumene production process in Hindustan Organic Chemicals Limited (HOCL), Kochi with improved operating conditions. High purity cumene is produced by the alkylation of benzene with propylene in this catalytic condensation process where solid phosphoric acid (SPA) is used as the catalyst. The mathematical model has been derived from mass and energy balance equations considering the reactor as fixed packed bed reactor and two different numerical methods are presented here to solve the modelling equations. The explicit finite difference method (FDM) involves the approximation of derivatives into finite differences, and in the other one, orthogonal collocation (OC), Ordinary Diffeential Equations (ODEs) are formed at the collocation points and are solved using Runge–Kutta fourth order numerical scheme. Here the analysis shows that the predictions from the model are in good alignment with the plant data. The combined feed has the optimum value of 1:2:8 for propylene, propane and benzene and the profiles of temperature and concentration can be obtained along the reactor. The model has been implemented in COMSOL Multiphysics as a packed bed reactor using the same parameters collected from the plant of study. It has been found that the reaction occurs at a satisfactory level even with a low temperature than the reactor temperature at the plant by changing the catalytic particle size. The reaction performance is also analysed for the physical properties like porosity and catalyst size.