Reaction Rates

We note that most reaction rates are experimentally determined (so are
empirical a fit to experimental data) on batch systems.
Very formally the rate of reaction, ri of species i in a batch system is

ri

1 dni
V dt

where V = system volume at time, t

ni = number of moles of i at time, t
When doing this batch experiment we will try and keep the volume constant and
so we can re-write this as:

ri

dci
dt

where ci = concentration of species i at time, t

So for the reaction in the coursework for a batch system someone has
determined that this fits a first order reaction form and so have that

ri

dci
kci
dt

For the CSTR system we have

ri kci
dci

dt

as for the CSTR system

means something different which comes from an
unsteady state mass balance on the CSTR.

dci

dt

In this overall system for the CSTR clearly the differential

is not just equal
to the reaction term, and so when describing the reaction rate we should write r i

dci
= -kci NOT

dt
= -kci. The latter is only true for a batch system of constant

dci

dt

volume. However it doesnt stop people using

to mean reaction rate so
beware of this. From context it should be obvious what is meant, sadly it rarely
is...