Placement Team, Chemical Engg, IIT Madras 2012

Chemical Reaction Engineering

Rate of a reaction= -rA

How fast a reactant is consumed to form the product.

Three basic reactions are decomposition, isomerisation and combination
In heterogeneous cases like catalysis, rate is defined as the number of moles of A
consumed per mole of the catalyst used.

Standard mole balance:

In-Out + Generation = Accumulation

I. Batch Reactors
Used for small scale operations
Testing and R&D
Production of expensive products
Advantage- High conversion
Disadvantage: Costly, high variability

II. Continuous Stirred Tank Reactors(CSTRs)

Always operated at steady state
Most commonly used reactor type
Also called as back-mix reactor
Major assumption: contents are well mixed
No time or position dependence of temperature, concentration or reaction rate in the
reactor
Major assumption: Exit stream has same concentration as that of the reactor.

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III. Plug flow reactor:

Concentration varies continuously in the axial direction
No radial variation in reaction rate

IV. Packed bed reactor

Reaction takes place on the surface of the catalyst.
Reaction rate is a function of the mass of the catalyst rather than of reactor volume

V. Conversion (XA) = moles of A reacted/ Moles of A fed

Maximum conversion is equilibrium conversion.

Time taken to reach a particular conversion X:

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For CSTR:

For a conversion X, the volume of the reactor V is calculated as:

For PFR:

Reactor volume V can be calculated as:

For a Packed Bed Reactor:

The weight of the catalyst required can be calculated as:

VI. Reactors in Series:

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 Placement Team, Chemical Engg, IIT Madras 2012

For CSTRs in series:

PFRs in series:

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Hence PFRs in series as good as a single PFR with the combined size.

VII. Space Time

Also known as holding time or mean residence time.
Obtained by dividing reactor volume by volumetric flow rate.

VIII. Stoichiometry
For a reaction,

For a reversible reaction, equilibrium constant is defined as:

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Determining the rate constant for any reaction(k):

Arrhenius method:

IX. Multiple reactions

Parallel Reactions Series reactions

Independent Reactions

References:
Fogler
Levenspiel

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