CATALYTIC COMBUSTION OF VOC MIXTURES IN A MONOLITHIC REACTOR

The deep oxidation of volatile organic compounds (VOC) in air was carried out over a Pt/Al2O3 catalyst supported on a ceramic monolith. Single organic compounds and binary mixtures were separately tested to point out the reliability of kinetic models and to evaluate the mutual inhibition phenomena. The experimental results show that conversion data from single compounds runs might be insufficient to predict the real reactor performance when VOC mixtures are oxidized. The experimental data were also compared with computer simulations of the monolithic reactor. A simple monodimensional model was developed and various heat and mass transfer coefficients correlation were tested. A satisfactory agreement between computed and experimental results was obtained using local transport coefficient correlations.