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International audience; Successfully modeling the behavior of catalytic systems at different scales is a matter of importance not only for a fundamental understanding but also for a more rational design of catalysts and a more precise definition of the kinetic laws used as inputs in chemical engineering. We have developed here a multiscale modeling of the dehydration of isopropyl alcohol to propene and diisopropyl ether on γ-alumina catalysts, which clearly evidences and explains the central character of cooperative effects between coadsorbates in the kinetic network. The evolution of partial pressures with contact time was simulated using an original DFT-based microkinetic model based on a “macro site” centered on the main active site located on the (100) planes of alumina and comprising several neighboring adsorption sites. The formation of isopropyl alcohol–isopropyl alcohol or water–isopropyl alcohol dimers on the surface was required to correctly simulate the production of the minor product, diisopropyl ether, and the evolution of the product partial pressures at high conversion. DFT calculations were used to identify the structure of these dimers. In addition to entropic effects, the selectivity to ether is ruled by (i) stabilizing interactions between coadsorbed isopropyl alcohol or water molecules and the nucleophilic alcohol molecule reacting with the alcoholate intermediate, (ii) the formation of alcoholate–water dimers that selectively inhibit the formation of propene and increase the selectivity to ether at low conversion, and (iii) the reverse transformation of diisopropyl ether into propene and isopropyl alcohol that consumes ether at high conversion. The analytical expression of the reaction rate derived from this model and based on the existence of ensembles of interacting isopropyl alcohol and water molecules leads to a satisfactory modeling of the experimental kinetic measurements at all conversions.

This work aims to develop a multi-component evaporation model for droplets of urea-water-solution (UWS) and a thermal decomposition model of urea for automotive exhausts using the Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) systems. In the multi-component evaporation model, the influence of urea on the UWS evaporation is taken into account using a NRTL activity model. The thermal decomposition model is based on a semi-detailed kinetic scheme accounting not only for the production of ammonia (NH3) and isocyanic acid (HNCO), but also for the formation of heavier solid by-products (biuret, cyanuric acid and ammelide). This kinetics model has been validated against gaseous data as well as solid-phase concentration profiles obtained by Lundstroem et al. (2009) and Schaber et al. (2004). Both models have been implemented in IFP-C3D industrial software in order to simulate UWS droplet evaporation and decomposition as well as the formation of solid by-products. It has been shown that the presence of the urea solute has a small influence on the water evaporation rate, but its effect on the UWS temperature is significant. In addition, the contributions of hydrolysis and thermolysis to urea decomposition have been assessed. Finally, the impacts of the heating rate as well as gas-phase chemistry on urea decomposition pathways have been studied in detail. It has been shown that reducing the heating rate of the UWS causes the extent of the polymerization to decrease because of the higher activation energy.