Abstract

The description of transient kinetic data in catalysis by, for example, acidic zeolites and zeotypes presents unique challenges due to the intricate nature of hydrocarbon transport in microporous materials. Surface barriers and hindered microporous diffusion, two processes that are known to affect gas transport in kinetic studies of zeolite-catalyzed reactions, are currently captured by very few models in the literature. During pulse-response experiments in the Temporal Analysis of Products (TAP) reactor, the aforementioned phenomena are reflected in our extended models in this paper. To help with the design of future experiments, systematic studies of models’ parametric sensitivity are presented. The effects of realistic zeolites’ thermodynamic adsorption properties on the shapes of the pulse-response are studied through numerical simulations. Microporous diffusion is shown to produce a distinctive bend in the mean residence time temperature dependence for some combination adsorption/diffusion parameters, which can be used as a model discrimination fingerprint.