Modeling of ethylbenzene dehydrogenation catalyst deactivation on an industrial scale

The performance of an ethylbenzene dehydrogenation industrial reactor was studied for about 800 days and a catalyst deactivation model was derived. The results showed that the proposed model can predict catalyst deactivation significantly better than standard models, with only 2.5% prediction error after 800 days of operation. Moreover, the optimal path for increasing the temperature of the styrene production reactor was introduced for the first time to maximize styrene production.