Gravitational Search Algorithm for Estimating the Kinetic Parameters of the Propane Pre-reforming Reaction

The article describes a gravitational search algorithm and its application to solving the inverse problem of chemical kinetics. The relevance of the study of metaheuristic algorithms, including the gravitational search algorithm, is given. It is shown that recently, these algorithms are becoming increasingly popular. The optimization problem is formulated on the example of solving the inverse kinetic problem. The process under study is propane pre-reforming into methane- rich gas over Ni catalyst, which is an industrially important chemical process. The description of the algorithm and its pseudo-code are presented, after which the performance of the gravitational search algorithm is compared with other metaheuristic methods. The algorithm demonstrated its competitiveness, as a result of which it was applied to solve a specific industrial problem. Using this algorithm, the inverse problem of chemical kinetics was solved, and the optimal values of the kinetic parameters of the reaction were found. It was proved that the model correctly describes the available experimental data.