Experiment: Chemical Reactors Objectives: The aim of the experiment is to calculate the rate constant (k) for the

reaction of for both the Batch Reactor and Continuous Stirred Reactor. In order to calculate the rate constant for the Continuous Stirred Reactor, an equation is used. The equation is ( )
( ) ( )

. On the other hand, to calculate the . The gradient of the

rate constant in a batch reactor, a graph is produced plotting

line is the rate constant. The rate constants are determined in order to compare the effect of temperature on rate of reaction. Results: Discussion:Talk about results obtained The experiment is based in a small laboratory so many factors need to be taken into consideration when analysing the results. As well as taking into safety procedures and monitoring the environment that the experiment is based on, some errors occurred whilst the experiment was performed. Overshoots in the volume of the solution created by mixing and may potentially influence the concentration. This can distort the values then obtained and used for the calculation of the rate constant however the effect is minimal. The conductivity measured when performing the CSTR experiment, fluctuated at certain times. This is possibly due to the temperature at which the temperature rod was exposed. At a certain stage in the experiment, an incorrect temperature was recorded and as a consequence, due to the fact that conductivity is a function of temperature, the values recorded were not correspondent to the right temperature. The experiment therefore needs to be repeated at the correct temperature. A computer program could monitor the temperature of the reactor instead of a temperature rod and signal an alarm when the temperature deviates, which would help increase the accuracy of the data. The conversion achieved in the results located indicates that there was not a very high conversion rate of sodium hydroxide to the sodium acetate. This shows that not all the reagents have been involved in the reaction and therefore if the experiment were to be carried out for a longer period of time, perhaps a higher conversion would be obtained. The experiment should be repeated again at the same flow rate, to compare values, so that data is more reliable. Also repeating the experiment at different flow rates can help decide if there is a correlation between flow rate, conversion of the reactants and the rate constants. This can be done by monitoring the effects of the flow rate against the conversion and the rate constant. Conclusion The experiment needs to be conducted again to correct the experimental errors that appeared in the first attempt. This is to ensure that the values obtained are accurate and to decide the effects of temperature on the rate constant and conversion.