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What are the common factors affecting catalyst deactivation for catalytic furnaces?

That happens with the impurities in the feedstock or process stream chemically bond with the catalysts's active sites, blocking them from participating in the desired reaction. Major contributors include Sulfur compounds (H2S, thiophenes), heavy metals (As, Pb, Hg, Ni, V), organonitrogen compounds, and even certain reaction products can act as poisons.
The way just to mitigate this is to have pre-treating facilities for feedstocks after identification, and then to remove poisons, using guard beds, or incorporating additives that preferentially adsorbs poisons.
Catalyst deactivation will be leading to reduced efficiency and increased operational costs.

There are other physical deactivation mechanisms as well involving material accumulation or structural failure.
Fouling (Coking): This is the physical deposition of carbonaceous materials (coke) onto the catalyst surface and within the pores.
The coke layer physically masks the active sites and blocks the access of reactants to the catalyst's internal structure.
This is common when processing heavy hydrocarbons or operating with low steam-to-carbon ratios in reforming processes, which can lead to rapid deactivation and reactor shutdown.

Attrition and Crushing (Mechanical Degradation): This is the physical loss of catalytic material due to mechanical forces.
It's caused by high fluid velocities, collisions between catalyst particles (especially in fluidized beds), or mechanical stresses induced by temperature cycling and pressure changes.
This results in the pulverization of catalyst pellets, which can lead to pressure drop issues and loss of internal surface area.

It is required to be identified that how deactivation is happening in your case and what kind of pre-treating as mentioned by ww2i are needed to be applied or there has to be another method to address the issue.

ww2i & jeem.
thanks for the inputs.