17 July, 2021

    The Chemical Engineering Department under the auspicies of the Institution of Engineers India (IEI)  organized an online training program on “Challenges and Emerging Trends in Catalysis” from July to September 2021. The session – 2 of the following training program entitled “Challenges in the Operation of Benzene Hydrogenation Catalyst” was organized on 17/07/2021, on the Microsoft Teams under the coordination of Prof. Dolly Gandhi and Prof. Yogesh Morabiya. The webinar was conducted by the expert Shri. D. J. Trivedi (Vice President Design, Construction, Safety and Fire Services Department, Gujarat State Fertilizers and Chemicals Limited, Vadodara). The training program was attended by 75+ UG & PG students of Chemical Engineering from various institutes of Gujarat.

The main purpose of this training was to make the participants aware of the latest development in the field of catalysis with the theme “catalysis promising the universe a better habitation”. Catalysis lies at the heart of many chemical processes by changing the pace of the process as per requirement thus making the reactor system controllable.

During this session – 2, the expert discussed the challenges in catalyst procurement broadly. He also presented some case studies on the reaction kinetics of benzene and  hydrogen (syn gas), reactors set up for benzene hydrogenation reaction, reactors set up in plant (in the company), discussion on their challenges, consequences, analysis of situation, alternatives, catalyst filling methodology, performance test result & benefits to be achieved. The expert also explained the selection criteria of catalyst, the main reason for catalyst deactivation and the life cycle of catalysts for chemical processes. Participants learned how to replace catalysts, their effect on overall reduction in cost along with increased capacity and improvement of quality of the product. They were also made aware of new challenges in industries & new dimensions for methodology of catalyst replacement.