Kinetics of vapor-phase dehydration of glycerol into acrolein on the BAO-1 heterogeneous catalyst

The vapor-phase dehydration of glycerol on the heterogeneous catalyst 0.5B₂O₃/γ-Al₂O₃ (BAO-1) was studied. The kinetic model of the process was developed based on the data obtained in a differential reactor. To evaluate the kinetic constants of the generalized mathematical models of the kinetics of vapor-phase dehydration of glycerol, we used the differential evolution method implemented in the Mathematica 5.0 program. The calculated activation energy of the target reaction of acrolein formation was 50.18 ± 0.11 kJ/mol. The adequacy of the obtained equations was assessed using the Fisher test. The optimum conditions of the vaporphase dehydration of glycerol were determined using the proposed kinetic equations (reaction temperature 330°C, glycerol concentration in the supply stream 30%, and catalyst load 0.0338 L/(g_cat min). The obtained data may be used in calculations for large units for acrolein production by glycerol dehydration.