MODELLING STUDIES ON PROPENE PRODUCTION BY PROPANE DEHYDROGENATION

Abstract

Propene is important feed stock for chemical industry. Conventional method for production of propene is by steam cracking and fluid catalytic cracking but conventional methods do not meet the rising demand of propene. So alternative methods for propene production are of great importance and propane dehydrogenation is one such alternative method. Propane dehydrogenation is reversible reaction and endothermic in nature which is carried out in presence of platinum or chromium catalyst. One dimensional, isothermal, steady state mathematical model has been developed for membrane reactor, in which separation and reaction takes place simultaneously. The membrane used is highly permeable only to hydrogen which causes the shift of the equilibrium towards the propene formation and increases the propane conversion. Mass balance for all gaseous components present in membrane reactor is taken for getting the model equation. The model equations are solved simultaneously using ODE solver in MATLAB. The performance of membrane reactor has been analyzed and compared with traditional tubular reactor in terms of propane conversion, product yield and selectivity. The results shows the higher conversion is achieved for membrane reactor due to removal of hydrogen form reactive zone results also shows that the conversion is also affected by the flow rate of sweep gases.