Cumeno

Cumene oxidation to cumene hydroperoxide
Cátia Folgado Saturnino Gordicho da Costa

Dissertação para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Química

Júri:
Presidente: Dr. João Carlos Moura Bordado Orientadores: Dra. Maria Filipa Gomes Ribeiro Dr. Jesús Lázaro Muñoz Vogal: Dr. Carlos Manuel Faria de Barros Henriques

2 de Dezembro de 2009

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Acknowledgements
The workdocumented in this report was only possible to achieve with the guidance, support and patience of a number of people that I have the privilege to interact, work and learn from. First of all, I would like to thank Professora Maria Filipa Gomes Ribeiro for conceding me the great opportunity to do my internship in CEPSA, for the orientation and for all the trust given. I would like to express my gratitudeto Jesus Lázaro Muñoz, for having accepted me in this final training and for his guide, interest, support, kindness and sympathy, so important in this six months period. With his patience and knowledge, taught me a lot. I am also grateful to Izaskun Barrio Iribarren and Francisco Andújar for the help with the Spanish language during my internship, for all the kindness, patience, availability,support and friendship, for the knowledge taught, for the assistance in the laboratorial experiments and for all the trust and responsibility placed in me. A very special thank to Izaskun for the last month I spent in Spain and also for all the help in preparing this thesis. Thank you for all the attention. I would like to thank all Petrochemical group, particularly, for the support and for the greattimes spent together and to all the workers in CEPSA who always were very kind and cooperative. I cannot forget all the friends I made in Alcalá de Henares that also shared with me the experience to be trainee in CEPSA: Pedro, Javier, Maria José, Clara, Tatiana and Arancha. I also want to thank Rebeca for all the time shared between trips to CEPSA, shopping, cooking, cleaning, and conversations inour language. I have to thank Mariana for all the support, sharing and recommended travels to beautiful places in Spain. I want to thank all visitors who passed by here and made the days go faster and better. I would like to thank my family and friends in Portugal, who were so far but so close, and always supported me. I want to express my gratitude to three special persons, mum, dad and Marco,for their love, help, support, patience, encouragement and for being always there.

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Resumo
O presente trabalho teve como objectivo o estudo da oxidação de cumeno a hidroperóxido de cumeno (CHP), a reacção chave de um processo industrial de produção de fenol. Pretendeu-se estudar a oxidação de cumeno a CHP a fim de poder-se optimizá-la, determinando as condições óptimas de operação, bem comoescolhendo o catalisador mais adequado para melhorar o processo, aumentando a selectividade a CHP e a velocidade de oxidação. Foi necessário estabelecer um equilíbrio entre a velocidade de oxidação de cumeno e a selectividade a CHP. Concluiu-se que para obter as condições a que se trabalha actualmente na CEPSA QUÍMICA: 93ºC, uma velocidade de oxidação de cumeno de 15g.l .h e uma selectividade aCHP de 91%, o melhor catalisador é um óxido misto de manganês e outro metal, suportado. Com este catalisador, consegue-se também alcançar as condições com que se pretende trabalhar de futuro, 80ºC com uma velocidade de oxidação na ordem das 12-15g.l .h e uma selectividade a CHP em torno dos 93-95%.
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Palavras – Chave
Cumeno CHP Catalisador Selectividade Velocidade de oxidação

4Abstract
This work is based on the study of cumene oxidation to CHP, the key reaction of a phenol production industrial process. It is intended to study the cumene oxidation to CHP in order to be able to optimize it, determining the optimal operation conditions as well as choosing the most suitable catalyst that improves the process, increasing the selectivity to CHP and the oxidation rate....