SOLUTION OF A COMPLEX REACTION NETWORK. THE METHYL-LINOLEATE CATALYTIC HYDROGENATION

An extension of Silvestri et al.'s (1968, 1970) treatment to extimate kinetic parameters in complex pseudomonomolecular reaction systems including several irreversible reaction steps is proposed. The method allows a considerable reduction of the experimental work while the required computational work is minimal.As an application, the kinetic modelling of the reaction network for the catalytic hydrogenation of methyl linoleate in liquid phase at 398-443 K and 370-647 kPa is presented. Accurate estimates of the various global pseudo-first order rate constants are thus obtained. It is also shown that the apparent co-hydrogenation of double bonds of the methyl linoleate to yield methyl stearate is a mere artifact related only to non-equilibrium chemisorptions.