Chemical reactors reactions

Before 1950, unit operations was the major course taught in the Chemical Engineering Department. However, since I960, in most universities, process design, chemical reaction/reactor engineering, transport phenomena, and process control, etc. also have been included in the... 

Arthur D. Little has carried out cost structure studies for a variety of fuel cell technologies for a wide range of applications, including SOFC tubular, planar and PEFC technologies. Because phenomena at many levels of abstraction have a significant impact on performance and cost, they have developed a multi-level system performance and cost modeling approach (see Figure 8-49). At the most elementary level, it includes fundamental chemical reaction/reactor models for the fuel processor and fuel cell as one-dimensional systems. 

Each step offers a resistance to chemical reaction. Reactors often operate in a region where only one or... 

Mixing and Chemical Reactions/Reactor Design Chapters 13 and 17... 

Helium Stable in neutron flux Noble/inert gas Can be used inside reactor core Does not participate in chemical reactions Reactor coolant in VHTRs and GFRs working fluid in Brayton power cycle... 

Modelling plasma chemical systems is a complex task, because these system are far from thennodynamical equilibrium. A complete model includes the external electric circuit, the various physical volume and surface reactions, the space charges and the internal electric fields, the electron kinetics, the homogeneous chemical reactions in the plasma volume as well as the heterogeneous reactions at the walls or electrodes. These reactions are initiated primarily by the electrons. In most cases, plasma chemical reactors work with a flowing gas so that the flow conditions, laminar or turbulent, must be taken into account. As discussed before, the electron gas is not in thennodynamic equilibrium... 

The concept of macroscopic kinetics avoids the difficulties of microscopic kinetics [46, 47] This method allows a very compact description of different non-thennal plasma chemical reactors working with continuous gas flows or closed reactor systems. The state of the plasma chemical reaction is investigated, not in the active plasma zone, but... 

Chain reactions do not go on forever. The fog may clear and the improved visibility ends the succession of accidents. Neutron-scavenging control rods may be inserted to shut down a nuclear reactor. The chemical reactions which terminate polymer chain reactions are also an important part of the polymerization mechanism. Killing off the reactive intermediate that keeps the chain going is the essence of these termination reactions. Some unusual polymers can be formed without this termination these are called living polymers. 

Chemical Reaction Measurements. Experimental studies of incineration kinetics have been described (37—39), where the waste species is generally introduced as a gas in a large excess of oxidant so that the oxidant concentration is constant, and the heat of reaction is negligible compared to the heat flux required to maintain the reacting mixture at temperature. The reaction is conducted in an externally heated reactor so that the temperature can be controlled to a known value and both oxidant concentration and temperature can be easily varied. The experimental reactor is generally a long tube of small diameter so that the residence time is well defined and axial dispersion may be neglected as a source of variation. Off-gas analysis is used to track both the disappearance of the feed material and the appearance and disappearance of any products of incomplete combustion. 

The three chemical reactions in the toluene—benzoic acid process are oxidation of toluene to form benzoic acid, oxidation of benzoic acid to form phenyl benzoate, and hydrolysis of phenyl benzoate to form phenol. A typical process consists of two continuous steps (13,14). In the first step, the oxidation of toluene to benzoic acid is achieved with air and cobalt salt catalyst at a temperature between 121 and 177°C. The reactor is operated at 206 kPa gauge (2.1 kg/cm g uge) and the catalyst concentration is between 0.1 and 0.3%. The reactor effluent is distilled and the purified benzoic acid is collected. The overall yield of this process is beheved to be about 68 mol % of toluene. 

Reactors. Reactors are a special type of vertical vessel. Some reactors are also in horizontal vessels but this is rare. Reference 7 covers reactors in more detail (see also Reactor technology). Reactors provide the means by which chemical reactions occur to transform feedstocks into products. 

Early ia the development of chemical reaction engineering, reactants and products were treated as existing ia single homogeneous phases or several discrete phases. The technology has evolved iato viewing reactants and products as residing ia interdependent environments, a most important factor for multiphase reactors which are the most common types encountered. 

Work in the area of simultaneous heat and mass transfer has centered on the solution of equations such as 1—18 for cases where the stmcture and properties of a soHd phase must also be considered, as in drying (qv) or adsorption (qv), or where a chemical reaction takes place. Drying simulation (45—47) and drying of foods (48,49) have been particularly active subjects. In the adsorption area the separation of multicomponent fluid mixtures is influenced by comparative rates of diffusion and by interface temperatures (50,51). In the area of reactor studies there has been much interest in monolithic and honeycomb catalytic reactions (52,53) (see Exhaust control, industrial). Eor these kinds of appHcations psychrometric charts for systems other than air—water would be useful. The constmction of such has been considered (54). 

Over 25 years ago the coking factor of the radiant coil was empirically correlated to operating conditions (48). It has been assumed that the mass transfer of coke precursors from the bulk of the gas to the walls was controlling the rate of deposition (39). Kinetic models (24,49,50) were developed based on the chemical reaction at the wall as a controlling step. Bench-scale data (51—53) appear to indicate that a chemical reaction controls. However, flow regimes of bench-scale reactors are so different from the commercial furnaces that scale-up of bench-scale results caimot be confidently appHed to commercial furnaces. For example. Figure 3 shows the coke deposited on a controlled cylindrical specimen in a continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) and the rate of coke deposition. The deposition rate decreases with time and attains a pseudo steady value. Though this is achieved in a matter of rninutes in bench-scale reactors, it takes a few days in a commercial furnace. 

Catalyst Function. Automobile exhaust catalysts are perfect examples of materials that accelerate a chemical reaction but are not consumed. Reactions are completed on the catalyst surface and the products leave. Thus the catalyst performs its function over and over again. The catalyst also permits reactions to occur at considerably lower temperatures. For instance, CO reacts with oxygen above 700°C at a substantial rate. An automobile exhaust catalyst enables the reaction to occur at a temperature of about 250°C and at a much faster rate and in a smaller reactor volume. This is also the case for the combustion of hydrocarbons. 

Carberry and Varma (eds.). Chemical Reaction and Reactor Engineeting, Dekker, 1987. 

Packed Red Reactors The commonest vessels are cylindrical. They will have gradients of composition and temperature in the radial and axial directions. The partial differential equations of the material and energy balances are summarized in Table 7-10. Example 4 of Modeling of Chemical Reactions in Sec. 23 is an apphcation of such equations. 

For complex reac tions and with multistage CSTRs, more than three steady states can exist (as in Fig. 23-17c). Most of the work on multi-phcities and instabilities has been done only on paper. No plant studies and a very few laboratoiy studies are mentioned in the comprehensive reviews of Razon and Schmitz Chem. Eng. Sci., 42, 1,005-1,047 [1987]) and Morbidelli et al. (in Carberry and Varma, Chemical Reaction and Reactor Engineering, Dekker, 1987, pp. 973-1,054). 

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