Kinetics of Catalytic Decarboxylation of Naphthenic Acids over HZSM-5 Zeolite Catalyst

Naphthenic acids are naturally occurring carboxylic in crude oil with cyclic or aromatic rings their structure. These responsible for the acidity of oil, leading to corrosion problems refinery equipment and deactivation catalysts while creating a continuous need maintenance. Therefore, removing naphthenic has become an important requirement refining acidic oil. In this paper, experiments conducted investigate use HZSM-5 zeolite catalyst reduce total acid number (TAN) typical obtained from Al-Fula blocks Western Sudan. TAN is metric signifying A full factorial design experiment (DOE) framework enabled better understanding efficacy at three parametric levels (reaction temperature: 250-270-300 °C, reaction time: 2-3-4 h, oil:catalyst weight ratio: 20-22-25 g/g). The results demonstrate that provides up 99% removal via decarboxylation route. Additionally, efficiency increases increasing temperature residence time. was shown decrease after treatment four hrs.; 6.5 mg KOH/g 1.24; 0.39 0.17 250; 270 300 respectively. sharp observed mass ratio 20 g/g 250 almost complete conversion achieved 4 hrs. Another °C showed converse relationship between removal; suggesting activation side reactions higher conditions catalyzed by excess acid. Finally; Langmuir–Hinshelwood (LH) kinetic model been developed enable rapid prediction performance reaction. also validated tested ASPEN® software future simulation scalability studies.