Selective hydrogenation of olefins in reformate using amorphous nickel alloy catalyst in magnetically stabilized bed reactor

A magnetically stabilized bed (MSB) reactor was developed for selective hydrogenation of olefins contained in reformate by combining the advantages of MSB and amorphous nickel alloy catalyst (SRNA-1). Cold model experiments showed that MSB had three different operating regimes, i.e., particulate, chain, and magnetically condensed regime, depending on the intensity of magnetic field. In the chain regime, which was the optimum state for three-phase hydrogenation, the bed could be operated stably in a wide range with uniform voidage. At 170°C, 1 MPa, 12/hr LHSV, and hydrogen/oil ratio of 100:1 (vol/vol), the bromine number of reformate could be reduced from 3.7 to 0.34. The MSB reactor showed advantages of low temperature, high space velocity, low hydrogen/oil ratio, absence of pollution, and high selectivity for olefin hydrogenation with regards to the selective hydrogenation of olefins contained in the reformate. The proposed mathematical model agreed well with the experimental results with a mean deviation of 9.67%.