Molecular-Level Kinetic Modeling of Methyl Laurate: The Intrinsic Kinetics of Triglyceride Hydroprocessing

A molecular-level kinetic model for the hydroprocessing of methyl laurate was constructed. The reaction network was deduced using experimental observations in the context of the delplot method for the discernment of product rank. The resulting 45 species and 83 reactions were used to construct the set of material balances in the kinetic model. Kinetic parameters of the model were determined by minimizing the difference between model outputs and experimental data for methyl laurate hydroprocessing. Differences in reactivity as a result of catalyst metal composition were modeled via the catalyst family concept. The model results show good agreement with the experimental results for a range of process conditions.