a pilot plant fixed-bed reactor for dehydrogenation of heavy paraffins: experimental and numerical elucidation

The first step in producing eco-friendly biodegradable detergents is the dehydrogenation process of heavy paraffins. despite its importance, a few studies have been conducted on the process. in this paper, the heavy paraffin dehydrogenation process was elucidated using computational fluid dynamics (cfd) to simulate the performance of a pilot-scale fixed-bed reactor, investigate the effects of key operating parameters (temperature, pressure, lhsv, and h₂/hc ratio), and identify the best operating conditions for maximizing mono-olefin yield and selectivity. the validation of cfd simulation results was performed by comparing them with pilot plant data; the absolute relative deviations were less than 5.5%, indicating the adequacy of the simulation was confirmed. the cfd simulation results showed that the paraffin conversion and mono-olefin yield are higher at a lower hydrogen-to-hydrocarbon molar ratio (h2/hc). however, the mono-olefin selectivity is higher at higher h2/hc ratios. therefore, an h2/hc between 4 and 6 would be suggested as the best condition. also, the conditions to achieve the best system performance were the temperature between 460 and 470 oc and lhsv of 15 hr-1.