3.

0 INTRODUCTION AND THEORY

Chemical reactions occur every day, everywhere, any time and its happened without
realizing the reactions. As the technology developed rapidly, a chemical reactor exists as a
device and vessel that been designed to allow reaction occurs under control which we can
manipulated the variables and the parameters to produce desired products (Corporation,
2010). Thus, there are many reactors existed such as Batch Reactor, Continuous Stirred-Tank
Reactor (CSTR), Semi-batch reactor and Catalytic Reactor. However, while conducting this
experiment, batch reactor was used to test the reaction of saponification between ethyl acetate
(EtAc) and Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH).

Batch reactors is the general and widely used type of vessel in the industry are one of the
reactor that been used for a small-scale operation that widely used for testing new processes
that not fully developed. Besides, batch reactors also been used for the processes that are
difficult to convert into continuous-operations. Batch reactor is one example of “closed
reactor”. In a batch reactor, the reactants and the catalyst were placed inside the vessel then
the reaction occurred. The reaction between the chemicals then is allowed to react for a
period of time until the reaction become equilibrium. Or in other word there is no reaction
occur and the reaction rate stationary phase.

Batch reactors are examples of “closed reactors” that is ones that, once seeded or
inoculated, receive no further inputs of mass or energy and permit no outputs of waste
materials. Batch reactors may be stirred or not stirred but, in any case, conditions in the
reactor are constantly changing. In the pharmaceutical industry, batch reactor widely used to
culture microbial cell. During the fermentation inside the reactor, nutrients and other
materials like oxygen are declining and metabolic waste products are increasing. Perhaps the
simplest example of a batch “reactor” is a nutrient broth culture tube, although microbial
colonies growing on slants or plates are also examples of batch processes (Caccavale, 2011).

As mentioned above, were also batch reactors in which glass microscope slides were
suspended as coupons in the reactor medium as shown in the Figure 1 construction of batch
reactor. In this reactor type cells will typically form biofilm on the coupons and on the walls
of the reactor vessel, but a large planktonic population will also co-exist in the reactor. The
reactor design enables it to maintain that a stable biofilm cannot be maintained in a batch or
closed system. The microbial growth pattern in a batch reactor is the well-recognized growth
that consisting of a lag, an exponential, a stationary and, if the culture persists long enough, a
death phase.

Figure 3.1: Diagram of Batch Reactor

Theoretically, the batch reactor is simply a container to hold the contents while they
react. The aspect that need be determined is the extent of reaction at various times, and this
can be followed in several ways such as by following the concentration of a given component
and then the change in some physical property of the fluid, such as the electrical conductivity
or refractive index. Next is by following the change in total pressure of a constant-volume
system. Finally, is by following the change in volume of a constant-pressure system. The
experimental batch reactor is usually operated isothermally and at constant volume because it
is easy to interpret the results of such runs (Mohammed & Ahmed, 2010).
 This reactor is a relatively simple device adaptable to small-scale laboratory set-ups,
and it needs but little auxiliary equipment or instrumentation. Thus, it is used whenever
possible for obtaining homogeneous kinetic data. There are two procedures for analyzing
kinetic data, the integral and the differential methods. In the integral method of analysis, a
particular form of rate equation can be guested and, after appropriate integration and
mathematical manipulation, predict that the plot of a certain concentration function versus
time should yield a straight line. The data are plotted, and if a reasonably good straight line is
obtained, then the rate equation is said to satisfactorily fit the data.

Reference:

Caccavale, F., Iamarino, M., Pierri, F., & Tufano, V. (2011). Control and Monitoring of
Chemical Batch Reactors. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-195-0
[accessed on 23 May 2019]

Mohammed, A., & Ahmed, A. (2010). Saponification : A Comparative Kinetic Study in a

Batch Reactor. Saponification in Batch Reactor.