Estimation of activation energies during hydrodesulfurization of middle distillates

Hydrodesulfurization (HDS) of different petroleum distillates was carried out in a batch reactor using commercial CoMo catalyst and reaction conditions similar to industrial practice. Various experiments (agitation, particle size and amount of catalyst tests) were conducted with different hydrocarbon feeds to assure the operation under kinetic regime. Reaction orders and activation energies for each feed were determined by two approaches (linear and non-linear regressions). Both kinetic parameters (n and EA) were found to follow a direct relationship with sulfur content in the feed. Reaction orders ranged between 1.96 and 3.36 and activation energies from 21.49 to 41.96 kcal/mol, which were within the range of those reported in the literature. High values of reaction order were attributed to contributions of HDS reaction of each individual compound exhibiting very different reaction rate constants.