Kinetic study of phenol oxidation in a trickle bed reactor over Al/Zr-pillared clay catalyst

Abstract

Catalytic wet air oxidation of phenol was studied in a trickle bed reactor operated at 10 bar and temperatures between 120-160 °C over pillared clay wash-coated monolith catalyst. Different variables were studied including reaction temperature and liquid flow rate. The obtained results indicated that phenol conversion increase with an increase in temperature, whereas an increase in liquid flow rate has a negative effect on phenol conversion. Simple power law was used to model the kinetics of the process. When a simple power law model was used experimental results were predicted successfully with R2 = 0.9988 at 160 °C and the activation energy was 42.289 kJ/mol.