Rajesh D. Parmar1, Arunabha Kundu1, Christopher P. Thurgood2, Brant. A. Peppley1, and Kunal Karan1. (1) Queen's - RMC Fuel Cell Research Centre, Queen's University, Queen's Innovation Park, 945 Princess Street, Second Floor, Kingston, ON K7L 5L9, Canada, (2) Department of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering, Royal Military College, Kingston, ON K7K 7B4, Canada
Kinetics of autothermal reforming of tetradecane on Pt-Al2O3 catalyst between 750 oC and 900 oC is investigated. Experimental results obtained from NETL (US-DOE) are used for model parameter estimation and validation. Two LHHW type rate models are developed and subjected to parameter estimation and model discrimination. Fundamental LHHW model in which hydrocarbon is adsorbed on the catalyst surface as alkyl intermediate species by scission of C-H bond gave physically meaningful parameters. Parameters are estimated by using generalized reduced gradient method in spreadsheet and sequential quadratic programming in Matlab. The estimated parameters for the selected model are thermodynamically consistent. Predictions from the kinetic model are in good agreement with experimental data.