Abstract
A dynamic mathematical model is developed for the ethylene dimerization reactor to simulate the distribution of butene-1 and other oligomers in the products under different operating conditions. The bifurcation analysis of the model shows that the system can exhibit two types of static behaviour: unique and hysteresis. For both cases, the local optimum yields for butene-1 correspond to unstable steady states. Studying the effects of the recycle flow rate, the cooler heat transfer coefficient shows the importance of providing an efficient heat removal system for the reactor to operate around optimum conditions.