Reactor designs

In the direct process, NF is produced by the reaction of NH and F2 in the presence of molten ammonium acid fluoride (27). The process uses a specially designed reactor (28). Because H2 is not generated in this process, the ha2ards associated with the reactions between NF and H2 are elirninated. 

The unit Kureha operated at Nakoso to process 120,000 metric tons per year of naphtha produces a mix of acetylene and ethylene at a 1 1 ratio. Kureha s development work was directed toward producing ethylene from cmde oil. Their work showed that at extreme operating conditions, 2000°C and short residence time, appreciable acetylene production was possible. In the process, cmde oil or naphtha is sprayed with superheated steam into the specially designed reactor. The steam is superheated to 2000°C in refractory lined, pebble bed regenerative-type heaters. A pair of the heaters are used with countercurrent flows of combustion gas and steam to alternately heat the refractory and produce the superheated steam. In addition to the acetylene and ethylene products, the process produces a variety of by-products including pitch, tars, and oils rich in naphthalene. One of the important attributes of this type of reactor is its abiUty to produce variable quantities of ethylene as a coproduct by dropping the reaction temperature (20—22). 

The UCB collection and refining technology (owned by BP Chemicals (122,153—155)) also depends on partial condensation of maleic anhydride and scmbbing with water to recover the maleic anhydride present in the reaction off-gas. The UCB process departs significantly from the Scientific Design process when the maleic acid is dehydrated to maleic anhydride. In the UCB process the water in the maleic acid solution is evaporated to concentrate the acid solution. The concentrated acid solution and condensed cmde maleic anhydride is converted to maleic anhydride by a thermal process in a specially designed reactor. The resulting cmde maleic anhydride is then purified by distillation. 

Design reactor and/or downstream system to accommodate maximum expected pressure... 

In the last part of Chapter 7.4 (Transient Studies) the experimental work on ethylene oxidation was shown. There the interest was to investigate what occurs and how fast, after a thermal runaway started. The previous chapter discussed the criteria of how to design reactors for steady-state operation so that runaways can be avoided. One more subject that needs discussion is what transient changes can cause thermal runaways. 

A wide selection of metal reference foils and powder films of ideal thickness for tranmission EXAFS is available from The EXAFS Materials Company, Danville, CA, USA. The transmission method is well-suited for in situ measurements of materials under industrially relevant conditions of extreme temperature and controlled atmosphere. Specially designed reactors for catalysis experiments and easy-... 

Not all reactions take place in a designated reactor. Some occur in a heat exchanger, a distillation column, or a tank. Understand the reaction mechanisms and know where the reactions occur before selecting the final design. 

Barona, N. and H. V. Prengle, Design Reactors This Way for Liquid-Phase Processes, Hydrocarbon Processing, V. 52, No. 3, 1973, p. 63. 

A well designed reactor system should perform well not only within a narrowly defined set of windows, but should tolerate a good deal of fluctu-... 

The goal is to determine a functional form for (a, b,. .., T) that can be used to design reactors. The simplest case is to suppose that the reaction rate has been measured at various values a,b,..., T. A CSTR can be used for these measurements as discussed in Section 7.1.2. Suppose J data points have been measured. The jXh point in the data is denoted as S/t-data aj,bj,..., Tj) where Uj, bj,..., 7 are experimentally observed values. Corresponding to this measured reaction rate will be a predicted rate, modeii p bj,7 ). The predicted rate depends on the parameters of the model e.g., on k,m,n,r,s,... in Equation (7.4) and these parameters are chosen to obtain the best fit of the experimental... 

Suppose now that a pilot-plant or full-scale reactor has been built and operated. How can its performance be used to confirm the kinetic and transport models and to improve future designs Reactor analysis begins with an operating reactor and seeks to understand several interrelated aspects of actual performance kinetics, flow patterns, mixing, mass transfer, and heat transfer. This chapter is concerned with the analysis of flow and mixing processes and their interactions with kinetics. It uses residence time theory as the major tool for the analysis. 

Sufficient engineering data for designing reactors for three-phase processes are available. A column reactor with gravitational liquid downflow was industrially proven. An MLR with forced liquid downflow with ejector was also well studied. Dedicated catalysts for particular processes must be, however, worked out. 

Four elements of microchannel scale-up models will be described pressure-drop design, heat-transfer design, reactor design, and mechanical and manufacturing designs. 

The low density of gases makes it more difficult to keep the bubbles dispersed. The bubbles will move to the low-pressure areas, that is, behind the impellers, in the trailing vortices close to the impeller, behind the baffles, and at the inner side after a bend. The bubbles will coalesce in these areas with high gas holdup. It is very difficult to design reactors without low-pressure regions where the low-density fluid will accumulate. One such reactor is the monolith reactor for multiphase flow [32, 33]. 

Individual process steps identified in a conceptual design (reactors or separation/purification units) are studied experimentally in the laboratory and/or by computer simulation (see simulation programs as given in SOFTWARE DIRECTORY or Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) programs for studying fluid dynamics, such as PHOENIX, FLUENT, and FIDAP). 

It must be emphasised that it is unnecessary to correct a heat of reaction to the reaction temperature for use in a reactor heat-balance calculation. To do so is to carry out two heat balances, whereas with a suitable choice of datum only one need be made. For a practical reactor, the heat added (or removed) Qp to maintain the design reactor temperature will be given by (from equation 3.10) ... 

Acid hydrolysis of cyanates is still commonly used, following a first-stage cyanide oxidation process. At pH 2 the reaction proceeds rapidly, while at pH 7 cyanate may remain stable for weeks.24 This treatment process requires specially designed reactors to assure that HCN is properly vented and controlled. The hydrolysis mechanisms are as follows22 ... 

As discussed above, in a world with 4000 well-designed reactors, one would expect less than a 4% chance of a Chemobyl-scale reactor accident per century. If one estimates that such an accident might cause 20,000 eventual cancer deaths, the calculated risk over a century from reactor accidents would be of the order of 800 deaths. Reactors might do better or worse than this, but the anticipated scale of harm is in the ballpark of a thousand deaths per century - with large uncertainties in either direction,... 

Of course, when designing reactors it is interesting to refer to the specific contact area a (m2 mG+L-3) - that is, the interfacial area per unit volume of gas-... 

As the polymer melt builds molecular weight, it becomes more viscous. Toward the end of the reaction where the final molecular weight is achieved, stirring of the polymer requires specially designed reactor systems. Many large scale, commercial PBT plants currently employ a continuous DMT-based process. 

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