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1: Basic Considerations in Reactor Design

Chemical Technological Processes
Basic consideration in Reactor Technology
Chemical Equilibria and Chemical kinetics
2: General principles in Reactor design
Material and Energy Balances
Chemical equilibrium
Design of reactors
3: Homogeneous reactors
Kinetics
Interpretation of batch data
4: Heterogeneous Reactors
Non catalytic reactors
Catalytic reactors

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5: Industrial Reactors
Plug-flow reactors
Fixed bed reactors
Fluidized bed reactors
Stirred tank reactors
Bubble column reactors

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 A batch reactor is one with uniform
composition everywhere in the reactor but of
course the composition changes with time.

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 A plug flow reactor is one whereby a fluid
passes through the reactor with no mixing
of earlier and latter entering fluid, and with
no overtaking . It is as if the fluid moved in
a single file through the reactor.
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A mixed flow reactor, is one whose
contents are uniformly mixed with
same composition everywhere, within
the reactor and at the exit.


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 The rate equation is a means of describing the
kinetics of any reaction
 Suppose a reaction taking the form:

aA + bB rR + sS

 The most useful measure for reaction rate is

expressing the amount of disappearance of A per
unit volume and time

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 First of all, when materials react to form
products it is usually easy to decide after
examining the stoichiometry, preferably at
more than one temperature, whether we
should consider a single reaction or a number
of reactions to be occurring.
 When a single stoichiometric equation and

single rate equation are chosen to represent

the progress of the reaction, we have a
single reaction.

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 When more than one stoichiometric
equation is chosen to represent the
observed changes, then more than one
kinetic expression is needed to follow the
changing composition of all the reaction
components, and we have multiple
reactions.
 Multiple reactions may be classified as
series reactions, parallel reactions, which
are of two types competitive side by side
and more complicated schemes.

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 Consider a single reaction as follows:

A+B R

 If we postulate that the rate-

controlling mechanism involves the
collision or interaction of a single molecule
of A with a single molecule of B, then the
number of collisions of molecules A with B
is proportional to the rate of reaction.

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 But at a given temperature the number of
collisions is proportional to the concentration
of reactants in the mixture; hence, the rate of
disappearance of A is given by

 Such reactions in which the rate equation

corresponds to a stoichiometric equation are
called elementary reactions.

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 When there is no direct correspondence
between stoichiometry and rate, then we
have non-elementary reactions.
 The classical example of a non-elementary

reaction is that between hydrogen and

bromine,

 Which has the rate expression;

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 The molecularity of an elementary reaction is
the number of molecules involved in the
reaction, and this has been found to
have the values of one, two, or
occasionally three.
 Note that the molecularity refers only to an

elementary reaction.
 We call the powers to which the
concentrations are raised in a rate
expression the order of the reaction.

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 The temperature dependency of reactions is
determined by the activation energy and
temperature level of the reaction.
 These findings are summarized as follows:

1. From Arrhenius' law a plot of In

k vs 1/T gives a straight line, with large
slope for large E and small slope for small E.
2. Reactions with high activation energies are
very temperature sensitive; reactions with low
activation energies are relatively
temperature-insensitive.

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 3. Any given reaction is much more
temperature-sensitive at a low temperature
than at a high temperature.
4. From the Arrhenius law, the value of
the frequency factor k, does not affect the
temperature sensitivity.

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The following example illustrates how elementary
steps are used to represent a reaction mechanism. In
particular, a slow step in a mechanism determines
the rate of a reaction.
If the reaction
2NO2 + F2 = 2NO2F
follows the mechanism,
i. NO2 + F2 = NO2F + F (slow)
ii. NO2 + F = NO2F (fast)

Work out the rate law.

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Milk is pasteurized if it is heated to 63oC
for 30 min, but if it is heated to 74°C it only
needs 15 s for the same result. Find the
activation energy of this sterilization process.

Ans: 422 kJ/mol

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