Investigate the kinetics of coke solution loss reaction with an alkali metal as a catalyst based on the improved genetic algorithm

Abstract The kinetics of coke solution loss reaction with and without sodium carbonate were investigated under the reaction atmosphere of carbon dioxide. The variables of gas flow rate and coke particle size were explored to eliminate the external and internal diffusion, respectively. Then, the improved method combining with the least square and the genetic algorithm was proposed to solve the homogeneous model and the shrinking core model. It was found that the improved genetic algorithm method has good stability by studying the fitness function at each generation. In the homogeneous model, the activation energy with and without sodium carbonate was 54.89 and 95.56 kJ/mol, respectively. And, the activation energy with and without sodium carbonate in the shrinking core model was 49.83 and 92.18 kJ/mol, respectively. Therefore, it was concluded that the sodium carbonate has the catalytic action. In addition, results showed that the estimated conversions were agreed well with the experimental ones, which indicated that the calculated kinetic parameters were valid and the proposed method was successfully developed. Graphical Abstract