Economic effects of catalyst deactivation during VOC oxidation

Catalytic oxidation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) is widely used for air pollution control. While catalytic oxidation offers several advantages over alternative processes, the catalyst can deactivate over time, resulting in changes in activity and selectivity with time‐on‐stream. To maintain constant catalyst activity, required for environmental regulations, the temperature is generally increased gradually to compensate for catalyst deactivation. This results in an increase in fuel consumption with time. Since the fuel costs can account for 50 to 70 percent of the total operating costs, the effect of catalyst deactivation on fuel costs and hence total operating costs should be considered. This paper shows how the catalyst deactivation affects the total operating costs using an example of the oxidation of a VOC‐containing gas stream over a commercial hopcalite catalyst.