Abstract
The peculiarities of catalyst deactivation effects are discussed in association with the mechanism of their origin. The harm caused by impurity poisoning can be controlled by means of feed purification, but the problems become much more complicated when the changes in the catalyst performance are provoked by interactions of species which are a constituent part of the basic process. In these cases, the kinetics of the basic reaction and the deactivation regularities, especially those concerning the generation of deactivating agents (coke) are mutually dependent. The most commonly observed modes of activity changes - sharp drop in the beginning of the process; or smooth decrease; or stepwise character of the catalyst deactivation - are associated with causal mechanistic specificities. Accordingly, the deactivation kinetics is not unique within the entire conversion interval. Deeper knowledge on the mechanism of catalyst deactivation can be helpful for finding kinetic resources for reducing the harmful consequences. Different aspects of these problems are discussed.