Experimental design optimization of the tetralin hydrogenation over Ir-Pt-SBA-15

Abstract

Experiment design-response surface methodology (RSM) is used in this work to model and optimize two responses in the hydrogenation of tetralin to decalin using bimetallic Ir-Pt-SBA-15 catalyst. In this study, we analyze the influence of the nature of the catalyst (metal molar fraction and metal loading), the catalyst/substrate ratio and the temperature of the reaction as factors for the design. The responses analyzed were conversion at 3 h and at 5 h of reaction time. The response surfaces were obtained with the Box-Behnken design, finding the best combination between the reaction parameters that allowed optimizing the process. By applying the statistic methodology, the higher levels of the two objective functions were obtained employing the catalyst with 1 wt.% of iridium and 0.7-0.8 wt.% of platinum; the optimal ratio between mass of catalyst and mole of tetralin was 17-19 g/mol and temperature between 200 and 220 °C.