Fixed bed with catalyst deactivation: On‐line estimation of deactivation, control, and design

Abstract

On-line measurements of temperature and concentration and the global rate for fresh catalyst can be used to estimate a measure of catalyst deactivation. A feedback control policy is obtained from this ineasure of catalyst deactivation for maintaining the reactor outlet conversion constant with time at a desired level. This feedback control enables one to maintain the desired conversion without any knowledge of deactivation kinetics. 'These results are applicable to any type of deactivation. The optimal control can easily be taken into consideration for reactor design. This combination of process design and control with due consideration of catalyst deactivation for both is shown to result in a substantial improvement of the reactor performance.