Department of Chemical Engineering

IIT Bombay
CL 324 Chemical Reaction Engineering
Tutorial- 7

28/10/2015

1. A sample of the tracer hytane at 320K was injected as a pulse to a

reactor and the effluent concentration was measured as a function of
time, resulting in the data shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Tracer Data
Time
(min)
0
20
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
110
120
130
140
160
180
200

Tracer Conc.
(g/m3)
0.00
0.00
0.08
0.75
3.23
8.17
13.98
17.73
17.77
14.71
10.40
6.44
3.56
0.82
0.14
0.00

The measurement represents the exact concentration at the times listed and
not the average values between the various sampling tests. Using the given
data, do the following:
a) Determine the mean residence time of the reactor.
b) What fraction of molecules have an exit age between 100 and 140 mi
c) Determine the variance of RTD of the reactor (2 in units of min2), and
non-dimensional variance 2

2. A pipeline (10 cm I.D., 19.1 M long) simultaneously transports gas and

liquid form here to there. The volumetric flow rate of gas and liquid are
60000 cm3/sec and 300 cm3/sec respectively. Pulse tracer tests on the
fluids flowing through the pipe give results as shown below. What fraction
of the pipe is occupied by gas and what fraction by liquid?

t, sec

Given
Required
Pulse of
Any dead
reactant A
spaces?
N0= 1 mol
v, Et, E
First order
reaction
k= 0.1 min-1 Required
Given
V=50 lit
Step
Any
dead
Given
Required
input input space
Pulse
Any dead space
t<0:
C
v,
Et, E
in
v=
3
=3 /sec
4cm
N0, Et, E
3
t>0:
C
in
V= 60 cm
=9
V= 2 lit

t, min

6. The Dow model 5 artificial kidney is a plastic single pass membrane

exchanger, easily slipped in a coat pocket, and containing about 20,000
reconstructed cellulose hollow fibers. For tracer tests fluid flows at 500
cm3/min through the shell side, the tubs side is kept stagnant. Pulses of
two different kinds of tracer are introduced into the entering shell side.
Tracer A cannot penetrate the membrane and therefore remains to the
shell side. Tracer B passes freely through the membrane material into the
tube side fluid. Find the volumes of shell side and of tube side fluid from
the idealized data shown below.

7. A large tank (860lit) is used as a gas liquid contactor. Gas bubbles up

through the vessel and out the top liquids flow in at one pot and out the
other at 5lit/sec. To get an idea of flow pattern of a liquid in the tank a
pulse of tracer (M=150g) is injected at the liquid inlet and measured at
the outlet as follows
a) Is this a properly done experiment? If so find the E curve.
b) Quantitatively what do you think is happening in the vessel?