The hydrogenation of m-cresol to cyclohexanone exhibits an interesting non-Arrhenius behavior that requires further investigation.  First, while it is expected that being an exothermic reaction, the hydrogenation rate should decrease with increasing temperature when equilibrium is reached, the experimental observations show that the rate in fact starts decreasing at much lower temperatures than that needed to reach equilibrium at a given conversion.  By conducting a meticulous kinetics analysis, we have shown that the cause for the observed decrease in activity is due to a decrease in surface coverage that overrides the increase in intrinsic rate constant.  From this analysis it is possible to obtain reliable experimental values of enthalpies and entropies of adsorption that can be directly compared to theoretical values obtained by DFT and statistical thermodynamics analysis.<br/>

Mechanistic description of the ring hydrogenation of m-cresol on Pt catalysts

2019 Spring National Meeting

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