Kinetics of liquid-phase phenol hydrogenation enhanced by membrane dispersion

Cyclohexanone is an important chemical raw material for the manufacture of nylon 6 and nylon 66. Developing green technologies to produce cyclohexanone is urgent. Herein, a fixed-bed reactor enhanced by membrane dispersion was structured for liquid-phase phenol hydrogenation over Pd/Al₂O₃ to efficiently prepare cyclohexanone, and a macroscopic kinetics model was established for the first time by introducing the membrane parameters including the membrane area and membrane pore size. The reaction rate of phenol and solubility of hydrogen can be calculated based on the developed model. The theoretical values are in line with the experimental data within relative error of ±10%. More importantly, the model can be used to determine the optimal membrane pore size, membrane area and operating conditions under the premise of achieving the expected conversion, which is beneficial for the fixed-bed reactor enhanced by membrane dispersion in a continuous catalysis.