Kinetics of liquid phase catalytic hydrogenation of dicyclopentadiene over Pd/C catalyst

To investigate the kinetics behaviors of dicyclopentadiene hydrogenation, a series of experiments were performed at different temperatures (323-353 K) under varying hydrogen pressure (0.5-1.5 MPa) with a range of Pd/C catalyst loading (0.25-1.00 wt %) using ethanol as solvent in a batch reactor. The time dependent concentration variations for each component were traced under the conditions of removing both the internal and external diffusion effects. The Langmuir-Hinshelwood mechanism was proposed with the consideration of the noncompetitive adsorption between the organic species with hydrogen, and the surface reaction was the rate-determining step. The kinetic equations for the sequence reaction were derived on the basis of the analysis of mechanisms, and the model parameters were determined by fitting the experimental data in differential temperature using the method of Runge-Kutta. The reaction activation energies for the first and second steps are 3.19 and 31.69 kJ x mol(-1), respectively, and the reliability of the model was verified by these experimental results to change hydrogen pressure, reactant concentration and catalyst loading. The simulation results agreed well with the experimental data.