Online Monitoring of Catalyst Deactivation Based on Data Reconciliation and Flowsheeting Simulator

Most of chemical technologies are based on heterogeneous catalytic reactions (~80%). Model based tools used for design, control and monitoring of these processes require accurate kinetic parameters of these catalytic reactions. Laboratory measurements and on-line analysers can be used to monitor decreasing catalyst activity. However these measurements are affected by errors influencing the estimation of kinetic parameters. To increase the robustness and accuracy of the estimation we developed a method based on the integrated application of data reconciliation and flowsheeting simulation. The proposed technique is applied for an industrial hydrogenation system. The estimated reaction kinetic parameters can be utilized advanced process control of the process.