Kinetic and Reactor Modeling of Catalytic Hydrotreatment of Vegetable Oils

Because of the growing world energy demand, biofuels obtained from the hydrotreatment of vegetable oils represent a renewable alternative to replace fossil fuels. The development of mathematical models is an accurate tool to design and simulate the performance of the reactor to predict product yields during the hydrotreatment of these oils. Better understanding of the different phenomena occurring during the hydrotreatment of vegetable oils and parameters influencing on this process by means of kinetic and reactor modeling is required. This was the motivation to develop an exhaustive review on different aspects of reaction kinetics, catalytic deactivation, and reactor modeling. Kinetics of model compounds and real feedstocks (oils) used to produce biofuels are analyzed and different assumptions for developing of reaction rate equations are discussed. It has been recognized that catalyst deactivation and reactor modeling must be deeply studied and supported with experimental data. There are few reported models that consider the mass transfer and temperature inside the catalytic particle. However, there are no models that consider the phase distribution and dispersion in the transient state, nor correlations to calculate the solubility of hydrogen in this type of system.