LUMPED KINETICS OF STRUCTURAL GROUPS - HYDROTREATING OF HEAVY DISTILLATE

Data from catalytic and thermal hydrotreating of a coker gas oil in a continuous-stirred reactor were used to study lumping of reaction kinetics based on structural groups. The feed and product compositions were described by a limited set of aliphatic and aromatic carbon groups, based on data from elemental analysis and NMR and 13C NMR spectroscopies. The rates of the reaction for the groups at steady state were used to identify the groups that followed pseudo-first-order kinetics and the groups that were related by stoichiometric constants over a range of reactor temperature and LHSV. The reactions of carbon groups in catalytic experiments were stoichiometrically related to the removal of heteroatoms (sulfur, nitrogen, and oxygen). The kinetics of the thermal reactions indicated that group concentrations were affected by more than one independent reaction. © 1990, American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.