Cumene Hydroperoxide Thermal Decomposition. Kinetic Modeling for Reliable Safety Evaluation

Adiabatic Calorimetry is currently used to achieve a thermokinetic characterization of reactive systems in which exothermic reactions occur. The adoption of simplified assumptions makes possible the estimation of important properties of the investigated system such as kinetic parameters or the heat of reaction. Sometimes this approach can lead to major inaccuracies when safer process conditions need to be established. The use of the data recorded under adiabatic conditions does not allow to correctly asses the concentration dependence of the rate of reactions. In the present work it is demonstrated that the use of the sole adiabatic calorimetry for the decomposition of Cumene Hydroperoxide in Cumene may lead to wrong reaction kinetics resulting into erroneous safety evaluations. An approach based on combined different calorimetric techniques may result for the case study into the development of a global kinetic autocatalytic model which satisfactory simulates the system behaviour.