School of Chemical Engineering

CEIC2007
CSTR unit – Experiment B

Aim of Experiment B
To study chemical reactions in CSTR, with dead time, by plotting residence times.

Safety
 Care with water and brine spillages.
 Don’t operate peristaltic pumps without correct valves open.
 Clean equipment after use to reduce damage from brine solution.

Procedures (hints)
General Start-Up Procedures:

 Start with ALL valves closed. Turn on rig power and control panel first, then start
software program. Set up, data recording to 10 sec intervals.
 Fill feed tank B2 with 5 L of 0.025 M sodium chloride (NaCl).
 Fill feed tank B1 with de-ionized water.
 Start water flow by opening valves V1, V9 (fully) and V10 (half open), three-way
valve V6 to right hand side and set pump P1 to 150 ml/min (45 rpm).
 Run water through all reactors until conductivity values are constant and low, and
no air bubbles are observed in the hoses. Start stirrers at 200rpm. Record the
conductivity values at time t0.

No dead time:
 Open valves V1, V4, V9, but shut V10.
 At time t0, switch off pump P1. Quickly set the 3-way valve V6 pointing towards
yourself (brine flow). Switch on pump P2 (45 rpm) and start the timer.
 Run pump P2 for 2 minutes. Switch off pump P2. Set the 3-way valve V6 to right
(water flow). Switch on pump P1 (45 rpm) and leave it running until the reading of
the conductivity values are constant and low.

Dead time involved:

 Repeat the previous steps except with V9 and V10 both about half open.
 After experiment, drain tanks, run clean water through system. Switch off.

Hints for the lab:

 Think about the parameters you could change which would influence the
residence time distribution for both cases.

1
  How could you modeling the dead zone of CSTR in series, how could you adjust
your experiment procedure?

Pointers for the report

 Show distributions C(t), E(t), and calculate mean residence time, variation in residence
time and skew, with and without dead-time at different flowrate.
 Show your understanding of the meaning of these terms and comment on the results
compared with the theoretical CSTR.

Key equations

𝑡
a) 𝐶𝑡𝑜𝑡 = ∫0 𝐶𝑑𝑡

b) Normalised residence time distribution, 𝐸(𝑡) = 𝐶(𝑡)⁄𝐶

𝑡𝑜𝑡

c) Mean residence time, tm   tE (t )dt
0


d) Second moment, variance,  2   (t  tm )2 E (t )dt
0


1
e) Third moment, skewness, S 3 
 32  (t  t
0
m )3 E (t )dt