Karina Ojeda

Modeling of trickle bed reactor for hydrotreating of vacuum gas oils: effect of kinetic type on reactor modeling

Abstract The hydrodesulfurization (HDS) processes research requires a lot of experimental work to define promotion and inhibition effects and find out correlations between the variables that participate on the sulphur removal. By means of modeling and simulation is possible to determine the scope of the process, and by means of the sequential design of experiments (SDE) is possible to reduce the experimental work required through comparison of kinetic models, at the same time that it predicts experimental conditions that allow to select a unique model and estimate its parameters. The purpose of this work was to simulate the HDS process using the mathematical model developed in previous work and several kinetic models founded in literature. Together simulation is proposed a SDE-based software with Runge-Kutta routines, orthogonal collocation methods an Sequential Quadratic Programming to develop the steps of the Design and to be used on pilot plant applications. The good agree between theoretical and experimental data led to the development of a user-friendly program to simulate the complex process, make easier the interpretation of simultaneous reactions, and become a useful tool for to improve the operation conditions of hydrotreating industrial reactors.

Life cycle analysis of the synthesis of eco-friendly metallic nanoparticles

The Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) allows the measure of the environmental impact of a product, process or system throughout its life cycle. In this research, this analysis was used to evaluate the environmental impacts produced by the green synthesis of silver nanoparticles using extracts from leaves of plants as a reducing agent of a metal salt. The process evaluation was carried out using the Simapro software (PRe Sustainability) under the CML model. The potential impact of the inputs and outputs of the life cycle were determinated. The results showed that the greatest contribution for the environmental impact comes from the use of ethanol and silver nitrate. Also, the reduction of abiotic resources increased as green synthesis requieres a greater amount of the precursor agent (AgNO3). However, a decrease in most of the categories evaluated in the comparison of the traditional synthesis were observed.