Effect of Non-Uniform Temperature Distribution in the TAP Reactor on Determination of Transport and Kinetic Parameters

TAP (Temporal Analysis of Products) is a technique for kinetic study of a heterogeneous catalytic system with solid catalyst and reactive gases. In TAP experiment the detected variable is the gas exit flow from the reactor. Determination of transport and kinetic parameters is performed using mathematical models that describe the phenomena in the reactor. Typically, a uniform temperature distribution in the reactor is assumed In this paper. The effect of non-uniform temperature distribution in the reactor on determination of diffusion coefficient. Rate constant and achbation cnergy is reported. Numerical simulation shoes that the non-uniform temperature distribution slightly affects the determination of the diffusion coefficient. The error of the determined rate constant can be large and is increased with activation energy. However the error of the activation energy is small when the conversion is not too low. However the error of the activation energy is small when the conversion is not too low. For activation energy of 25 kL/mol or larger. The error of activation energy does not exceed 17% throughout the domain of conversion between 0.01 to 0.99.