KINETIC MODELING OF CARBON DIOXIDE VALORIZATION WITH EPOXIDES Viviana Contreras Moreno, Alain Ledoux, Lionel Estel alain.ledoux@insa-rouen.fr Normandie Université, LSPC, INSA de Rouen, 76801 Saint Etienne du Rouvray, France. Rabah Azzouz, Vincent Levacher, Laurent Bischoff Normandie Université COBRA, Univ. Rouen; INSA Rouen; CNRS, Mont Saint Aignan Cedex, France Salim Derrouiche Veolia Recherche & Innovation, Centre de Recherche de Maisons-Laffitte, 78603 Maisons-Laffitte, France Key Words: Carbon dioxide valorization, cyclic carbonates, non-metallic catalyst, modeling, genetic algorithm. The reaction between carbon dioxide and epoxides using a non-metallic catalytic system can produce cyclic carbonates with excellent yields. The activation of the chemical system can occur in two ways: activation of epoxide or activation of carbon dioxide at the first step. A kinetic investigation of epichlorohydrin carbonate synthesis from epichlorohydrin and carbon dioxide was performed. The mass transfer, the kinetic of reaction and the activation of the chemical system was included in the analysis. A kinetic model was developed based on the reaction mechanism and the mass transfer phenomena. The quasi steady state assumption was considered on intermediate species and its results were compared with the detailed model. The optimization of the kinetic parameters estimated was performed by using a genetic algorithm in the model, the results obtained were in agreement with the experimental data. Introduction Influence of atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide in global warming is now well-established and is caused by an increase of greenhouse effect according to an acceleration of fossil energy consumption. Several ways are being implemented in the mitigation of carbon dioxide emissions like pre-combustion capture, oxyfuel combustion and post-combustion capture. These technologies are not at the same level of maturity but they can only be acceptable for a transition period. At present, only the long-term storage of carbon dioxide captured has been considered in the large scale. However the capture and storage of carbon dioxide have been questioned on the last years due to economics and environmental problems, which are associated with the energy consumed in the process and the stability of the stored gases. About 20-30% of energy in a power station is required to store carbon dioxide (Metcalfe et al. 2010). During the transition period valorization of CO2 should be developed. The objective is to consider carbon dioxide as a starting material needed by the chemical industry. In this way, carbon dioxide transformation would avoid the costs of carbon capture and storage associated (Metcalfe, North, and Villuendas 2013). Several chemical process for carbon dioxide valorization have been studied, the most common processes include the synthesis of urea, urethane derivatives, carboxylic acid, dimethyl carbonate, polycarbonates, cyclic carbonates and the catalytic hydrogenation of carbon dioxide (Olajire 2013). Chemical valorization of carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide transformation is not simple due to its high thermodynamic stability and low reactivity (Sakakura, Choi, and Yasuda 2007). In most cases high input energy is required to convert carbon dioxide or the use of complex catalytic systems is necessary to reduce the activation energy of the reaction. There are some exothermic systems which can be used for the chemical valorization of carbon dioxide such as epoxides, hydrogen, acetylene, amines, etc. Epoxides seem potential candidates for converting carbon dioxide into high value products. The reaction between carbon dioxide and epoxides in presence of a catalyst (Figure 1) can produce two types of products: cyclic carbonates and polycarbonates. Typically, the formation of polycarbonates is less thermodynamically favorable than the synthesis of cyclic carbonates, but it requires lower activation energy. Therefore, the formation of any of these products will depend on the selectivity of catalytic systems, substrate used (type of epoxide) and conditions of the reaction. Cyclic carbonates has attracted much attention in the