Based on the combination of the glycerol aqueous-phase reforming (APR) and catalytic hydrogenation of glycerol, a novel reaction system of liquid phase in situ hydrogenation of glycerol for the synthesis of 1,3-propanediol is proposed, in which hydrogen is produced from glycerol aqueous-phase reforming in the same reactor. In this new system, the glycerol is the raw material of the aqueous-phase reforming reaction; the hydrogen generated from the APR of glycerol can be quickly transformed to the in situ hydrogenation of glycerol to produce 1,3-propanediol, which can improve the selectivity of hydrogen for the APR process of glycerol. Moreover, thermodynamic calculation of the coupling processes was carried out, and standard molar enthalpies and equilibrium constants of foregoing reactions were obtained. The above calculation results indicate that the combination process is feasible for 1,3-propanediol synthesis.

A one-dimensional isothermal multicomponent reaction−diffusion model was established for irregularly shaped ammonia synthesis catalyst A301. The intrinsic kinetics equation was derived from the experimental data obtained under high pressure ranging from 7.5 to 10.5 MPa. A feasible method was developed to measure the shape factor of the irregularly shaped ammonia synthesis catalyst. The dynamics single pellet string reactor method as well as parameter estimation was applied to get the tortuosity factor of irregularly shaped ammonia synthesis catalyst. The orthogonal collocation method combined with the Broyden method was employed to solve the model equations, and the internal-diffusion efficiency factor and the concentration distributions of individual components in the catalyst were obtained. The multicomponent reaction−diffusion model was verified by the global kinetics data obtained in a gradientless reactor. The calculation data agreed well with experimental data, so the model can be used to describe the processes of multicomponent reaction and diffusion in the irregularly shaped catalyst. The integrative methodology of catalyst engineering presented in this paper can be extended to guide catalyst preparation and reactor design.