KINETIC STUDY AND CONCEPTUAL SIMULATION OF REACTOR FOR BIOAVTUR PRODUCTION

• Main Author: Pradipta Andrisi, Prama
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/67264
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Bioavtur is one of the renewable fuels that use vegetable oil as feedstock in its production. The production of bioavtur usually involves a hydrodeoxygenation reaction to convert vegetable oil to paraffin. Palm kernel oil (PKO) has the potential to be used as feedstock for bioavtur production due to its high lauric acid content that is already in the suitable carbon chain range for avtur (C9-C15). The performance of HDO processes, such as conversion and selectivity, can be influenced by several factors, including temperature, pressure, catalyst, and residence time. Therefore, the lauric acid HDO reactor simulation can be utilized in determining the operating conditions that lead to optimal bioavtur production. This study consists of several stages, including literature study, data collection, data processing, modelling, and reactor simulation. The modelling is based on the research data by (Brandão et al., 2020) who carried out an HDO reaction of lauric acid in a batch reactor using sulfided NiMo/Al2O3 catalyst at 30 bar of pressure and 280 – 340 oC of temperature. The data provided includes lauric acid conversion and undecane and dodecane yield at several temperatures and residence time. This data was then utilized to build the mass and energy balance of an adiabatic plug flow reactor. Reactor modelling was built following the hydrotreating reactor dimension from Pertamina RU II-Dumai (L = 3 m, d = 1.6 m, V = 6 m3). The reactor model was simulated at several variations of lauric acid feed concentration, feed temperature, and space velocity. Python was used as the programming software to determine the operating conditions that will lead to optimal conversion and HDO selectivity while ensuring reactor temperature does not exceed the maximum temperature threshold of the hydrotreating reactor, which is 400 oC. Based on the simulation done, it was found that the increase of lauric acid feed concentration will lead to higher total of dodecane product however lauric acid feed concentration of 30%-wt is the maximum concentration threshold so that the reactor temperature does not exceed the design limit. For 30%-wt lauric acid feed concentration, it was found that the feed temperature of 300 oC and LHSV of 1 h-1 as the operating conditions result in the highest hourly yield of dodecane product.