MEKELLE UNIVERSITY-MEKELLE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

CHEMICAL REACTION ENGINEERING LABORATORY EXPERIMENT 3

CONTINUOUS STIRRED TANK REACTOR

1. OBJECTIVES
• To determine the mean residence time of a continuous stirred tank reactor using tracer techniques.

2. INTRODUCTION
The knowledge of a chemical reaction is crucial for the understanding of interaction among materials and their
resulting chemical properties. Process engineering often deals with the transformation and production of new
materials. Therefore, it important to quantify the rate of this transformation in order design vessel in which these
changes are carried out. During design and analysis of reactors, ideal reactors are assumed for the simplification
of calculations.

Real reactors deviate from ideal ones and the differences are due to a number of factors, for instance the channeling
of fluid as it moves through the reactor, presence of stagnant regions within the reactor, bypassing or short-
circuiting of portions of fluids in a packed bed, the longitudinal mixing caused by vortices and turbulence, and the
failure of impellers or other mixing devices to provide perfect mixing. The deviations from ideal reactor conditions
pose several problems in the design and analysis of the reactors. In real systems there will be a spread of residence
times leading to a residence time distribution (RTD). For prediction of the behavior of a system, it has to be
determined how long the different fluid elements remain in the system. The concept of RTD in the analysis of
chemical reactors has formed the basis of various investigations involving flow systems in chemical and biochemical
reactors.

3. THEORY
A type of reactor used very commonly in industrial processing is a stirred tank operated continuously. It is referred
to as the continuous-stirred tank reactor (CSTR) or back mix reactor. The CSTR is normally run at steady state and
is usually operated so as to be quite well mixed. As a result of the latter quality, the CSTR is generally considered
as it doesn’t have spatial variation in concentration, temperature and reaction rate throughout the vessel. Since the
temperature and concentration are identical everywhere within the reaction vessel, they are the same at the exit
point as they are elsewhere in the tank.

In systems where mixing is highly nonideal, the well-mixed assumption is inadequate and we must resort to other
modeling techniques, such as residence-time distributions, to obtain meaningful results. One way to order our
thinking on nonideal reactors is to consider modeling the flow patterns in our reactors as either CSTRs or PFRs as
first approximation. In real reactors, however, nonideal flow patterns exist, resulting in ineffective contacting and
lower conversions than in the case of ideal reactors.

We must have a method of accounting for this nonideality, and to achieve this goal we use the next-higher level
of approximation, which involves the use of macromixing information (RTD). The idea of using the distribution of
residence times in the analysis of chemical reactor performance was apparently first proposed in a pioneering
paper by MacMullin and Weber.’ However, the concept did not appear to be used extensively until the early 1950s,
when Danckwerts gave organizational structure to the subject by defining most of the distributions of interest.

The RTD is determined experimentally by injecting an inert chemical, molecule, or atom, called a tracer, into the
reactor at some time t = 0 and then measuring the tracer concentration, C, in the effluent stream as a function of
time. In addition to being a nonreactive species that is easily detectable, the tracer should have physical properties

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DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

CHEMICAL REACTION ENGINEERING LABORATORY EXPERIMENT 3

similar to those of the reacting mixture and be completely soluble in the mixture. It also should not adsorb on the
walls or other surfaces in the reactor. The latter requirements are needed so that the tracer’s behavior will honestly
reflect that of the material flowing through the reactor. Colored and radioactive materials are the two most
common types of tracers.

The two most commonly used methods for tracer injection are; pulse input and step input. Pulse injection is
method required the introduction of a very small volume of concentrated tracer at the inlet of the reactor, such
that it approaches the Dirac delta function. While a step input involves abrupt change in the concentration of the
tracer from 0 to C0.

Effect of a step input change, calculation of the average residence time.

If C = concentration in reactor at time t after input step change

C0 = concentration of the input

𝑡
Then 𝐶 = 𝐶𝑜 (1 − 𝑒 −𝑡𝑟 ) where tr = time constant
𝑡 𝑡
− 𝐶
𝐶 = 𝐶𝑜 (1 − 𝑒 𝑡𝑐 ) → 1− = 𝑒 −𝑡𝑟
𝐶𝑜

𝐶 1
ln (1 − )=− 𝑡
𝐶𝑜 𝑡𝑟

Hence 𝑡𝑐 may be found graphically

4. EQUIPMENT
The materials and chemicals required to undertake this experiment are:

o 1L measuring cylinder
o Glass rod
o Potassium Chloride
o Weighing balance
o Distilled water
o Protective clothing
o Gloves
o Armfield service unit CEXC
o Armfield Continuous Stirred Tank Reactor CEM
o Feed assembly
o Compatible PC with Armfield software

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 MEKELLE UNIVERSITY-MEKELLE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

CHEMICAL REACTION ENGINEERING LABORATORY EXPERIMENT 3

Figure 1: Equipment Setup of the experiment

5. OPERATING PROCEDURES
5.1 Pre-experiment
1) Read and understand theory of CSTR reactor
2) Read the manual and understand the equipment used in the experiment
3) Read the safety precautions before conducting the experiment.
4) Clean every vessel in the setup before start of experiment using distilled water
5) Make sure you’ve worn protective clothing and gloves during experiment

5.2 General Start-Up Procedures

1) Fill the Hot Water Circulator (HWC) vessel with water up to the low-level tip (30cm from top).
2) Connect the reactor with computer and open the data logging software
3) ‘Switch on’ the Hot Water Circulator through the mimic software. Level of water in the vessel will decrease
as reactor jacket is filled. Keep filling the HWC vessel until the level in the vessel is stable and over the low-
level tip.
4) Prepare the following solution needed for the experiment:
• Prepare 2.5 L 0.1 M KCl solution

6. SAFETY PRECAUTIONS
1) All operating instructions supplied with the unit must be carefully read and understood before attempting to
operate the unit.
2) At least once each month, check that the RCD is operating correctly by pressing the TEST button. The circuit
breaker MUST trip when the button is pressed. Failure to trip means that the operator is not protected and
the equipment must be checked and repaired by a competent electrician before it is used.
3) The unit incorporates a pumped electric water heater, and is capable of producing temperatures that could
cause skin burns. Before disconnecting any of the pipes or tubing:
• Stop all the pumps.
• Leave time for the water to cool
• Check that the temperature is at a safe level
4) Do not touch any surfaces close to ‘Hot Surfaces’ warning labels, or any of the interconnecting tubing, whilst
the equipment is in use.

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 MEKELLE UNIVERSITY-MEKELLE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

CHEMICAL REACTION ENGINEERING LABORATORY EXPERIMENT 3

5) It is the user’s responsibility to handle chemicals safely. Therefore, always wear protective clothing.
6) Prepare chemicals and operate the equipment in well ventilated areas.
7) Only use chemicals specified in the equipment manuals and in the concentrations recommended.

7. EXPERIMENT
7.1 EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURES
1) Concentration and volume values must be filled in the boxes on each experiment so that software will carry
out the convenient calculations.
2) The software also automatically generates a series of ‘Watchdog’ pulses, required by the plc, ensuring that
the hardware shuts down safely in case of a software or communications failure.
3) Open the PID controller setting and choose automatic as a mode of operation. When performing the
experiment, it is best to use automatic control as this produces stable temperatures rapidly, and maintains
these conditions by varying the heater power.
4) Set the set point for the operating temperature on the same control panel.
5) Fill one of the feed bottles with 2.5 L of 0.1 M of KCl solution and fill the other feed bottle with demineralized
water.
6) Set the reactor stirrer to a speed of ‘50%’ and Press Power on’ to start the agitation. Then press ‘Hot Water
Circulator’ and water will start to recirculate through jacket reactor and vessel
7) Start the water feed pump by setting the pump speed control to maximum in order to fill the reactor to the
overflow as quickly as possible. When the reactor is full, stop the feed pump.
8) Start the KCL solution feed pump by setting the pump speed to 100 ml/min.
9) The conductivity of the reactor contents will begin to increase and, after a period of approximately 45 minutes
to 1 hour, will approach the conductivity of the feed solution and will reach the steady state.

7.2 EXPERIMENTAL DATASHEET

Sample data collection table is shown as follows

Time, t(s) Conductivity of solution (mS)

8. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Discuss all your results. The questions below only serve as a guideline. Your discussion should not be limited to
only these questions.

1. Plot the ln (1- C0 / Ca) vs time. Determine the experimental average residence time of the reactor.
2. Compare the experimental average residence time with theoretical residence time obtained from the
flowrate and volume of the reactor.

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 MEKELLE UNIVERSITY-MEKELLE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

CHEMICAL REACTION ENGINEERING LABORATORY EXPERIMENT 3

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