Kinetics of the Selective Oxidation of Propene to Acrolein in a Catalytic Wall Reactor

摘要

Degussa's acrolein technology underwent tremendous growth resulting in a global production of more than 100,000 t/a since Degussa AG has started acrolein production in 1942. Acrolein is now industrially produced in a heterogeneous gas phase reaction of propene with air using a multi-functional catalyst system. The main use for isolated acrolein is currently in the production of DL-methionine, an important animal feed additive. The industrial heterogeneous catalysed selective oxidation of propene is generally performed in a fixed bed reactor. Because of the exothermicity, this type of reactor is useless to investigate the kinetics of the propene oxidation. Isothermal reaction conditions are essential to investigate the kinetics during the highly exothermic oxidation of propene to acrolein. Therefore the catalytic wall reactor (CWR) was used for collecting isothermal data. Beside propene and acrolein the most important by-products acrylic acid, carbon oxides, acetaldehyde, formaldehyde and acetic acid were quantitatively analysed with the aim to determine a detailed reaction scheme.