Modeling and optimization of a fixed bed catalytic reactor for the cyclohexane dehydrogenation process

In this paper, the modeling of the industrial cyclohexane dehydrogenation process is done. The proposed configuration consists of a packed bed reactor including Pt/Al2O3 catalyst particles where cyclohexane will be dehydrogenated to significant products such as benzene and hydrogen. Besides, the optimization makes it possible to produce larger amounts of hydrogen as an environmentally friendly fuel, along with benzene, without production of any pollution. The governing equations including mass balance, energy balance, and pressure drop which are of the ordinary type (ODE) are achieved based on the steady-state conditions in which the feed flows are axial throughout the homogenous catalyst beds with variable physical properties. As the result, the one-dimensional homogenous mathematical model and the 4th order Runge-Kutta method is applied to solve them. Finally, the temperature change curves, conversion rates, and molar components of the components along the reactor were plotted and interpreted. After that, the reactor performance was optimized by a genetic algorithm, which resulted in a 0.88% increase in product output.. Afterwards, to approve the correctness and validity of the model, the simulation results are compared with the experimental data and acceptable agreement is achieved.