Sintering of catalytic metal nanoparticles under exothermic conditions in an adiabatic fixed‐bed reactor

Abstract In industrial reactors, the sintering of catalytic metal nanoparticles occurs at high temperatures. Under exothermic reaction conditions, the heat released in reaction increases temperature. The sintering‐related loss of the catalyst activity may result in decrease of temperature, which in turn may reduce the rate of sintering. Herein, this interplay has been scrutinized theoretically in an adiabatic tubular fixed‐bed reactor. At each coordinate along the reactor, the growth of the average nanoparticle size is found to be described by the power‐law equation with the apparent exponent. This exponent increases with increasing coordinate and may downstream become appreciably larger than that corresponding to the growth at constant temperature.