Improved Kinetics of n-Butane Oxidation to Maleic Anhydride: The Role of Byproducts

Detailed modeling of the oxidation of n-butane to maleic anhydride can help improve the process knowledge and facilitate the development of optimization strategies. Unfortunately, none of the kinetics published in the literature can satisfactorily describe the formation of the most important byproducts: CO and CO2. Based on qualitative findings, we derived different kinetic approaches (Eley-Rideal, Langmuir-Hinshelwood, and Mars and van Krevelen). With a mathematical model of the used millistructured fixed-bed laboratory reactor, these were adapted to the experimental results over a wide range of industrially relevant operating conditions. A comparison of the results suggests that the kinetics can be best described with a redox approach, according to Mars and van Krevelen, derived under the assumption of three different active sites. In this context, the aforementioned description of CO/CO2 formation can be significantly improved, even with a simplified reaction network. The key is to include information on the role of the usually neglected byproducts acetic and acrylic acid. © 2020 American Chemical Society.