The airing of propylene was carried out with copper-silica gel as a catalyst in the excess of air. Assuming that the rate-determining steps were the following surface reactions,
C3H6→C3H4O→CO
C3H6→HCHO→CO
C3H6→CO2
the production of acrolein, especially the yield of acrolein by one pass flow process, was dynamically analyzed as the psuedo-primary reaction and the optimum condition of producing the maximum yield of acrolein was determined.
The calculated apparent
activation energies of the following processes, C3H6→C3H4O
C3H6→HCHO
C3H6→CO2 C3H4O→CO
HCHO→CO
were 15.6, 15.5, 11.9, 2.3 and 10.0kcal/mol, respectively.