Kinetics of propene hydrogenation over palladium nanoclusters

Abstract

Most of the hydrogenations take place at temperatures below 200ºC or even close to the room temperature. For mild operating conditions, polymeric catalytic membranes proved to be competitive or even more efficient than other process [1]. Dense polymeric catalytic membranes actively interfere with the reaction by regulating sorption and diffusion of reagents and products that can significantly enhance the reaction conversion, far over the thermodynamic equilibrium [2]. Higher performances are expected if the catalyst is incorporated into the polymeric membrane as nanoclusters. Modeling and simulating a catalytic membrane reactor is important for better understand the phenomena behind and for optimizing proposes. In a catalytic membrane reactor the selective transport of reactants and products occur simultaneously. To access the parameters governing the separation and the chemical reaction kinetics, ideally independent experiments should be performed. In the present study the kinetic parameters of the propene hydrogenation over palladium were obtained using nanoclusters of this metal stabilized on surfactant, which ideally shows not mass transport resistance [3]. Different mechanisms were formulated and the corresponding kinetic equations derived. A criterion based upon statistical analysis was used to discriminate between possible kinetic models.