Catalytic oxidation of naphthalene using a Pt/Al2O3 catalyst

The results indicate that the Pt/γ-Al2O3 catalyst used accelerates the reaction rate of the decomposition of naphthalene and decreases the reaction temperature. A high conversion (over 95%) can be achieved at a moderate reaction temperature of 480 K and space velocity below 35,000 h−1. Non-catalytic (thermal) oxidation achieves the same conversion at a temperature beyond 1000 K. The results also indicate that Rideal-Eley mechanism and Arrhenius equation can be reasonably applied to describe the data by using the pseudo-first-order reaction kinetic equation with activation energy of 149.97 kJ/mol and frequency factor equal to 3.26 × 1017 s−1.