Application of Genetic Algorithm in Kinetic Modeling of Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis

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Kinetic modeling is an important issue, whose objective is the accurate determination of the rates of various reactions taking place in a reacting system. This issue is a pivotal element in the process design and development particularly for novel processes which are based on reactions taking place between various types of species. The Fischer Tropsch (FT) reactions have been used as the kinetic modeling bench mark. General kinetic models for FT, Water-Gas-Shift (WGS) and overall rates based on Langmuir-Hinshelwood-Hougen-Watson (LHHW) type have been considered and their optimum parameters have been obtained by Genetic Algorithms. The study shows the obtained model outperforms the other alternative models both in generality and accuracy. Due to flexibility and generality of Genetic Algorithms, it seems that GA is a useful technique with lots of potentials in determination of optimum kinetic model corresponding to a set of complex reactions.