Effect of Chemical Equilibrium Constant

These curves indicate that low ptessuie and the resulting low temperatures would result in low reaction rate, which would require large holdups on reactive trays. Alternatively, for a fixed number of trays and a fixed holdup, the concentrations of the reactants in the reactive zone would have to be large at low temperatures. This would require a large vapor boilup and reflux flowrate to keep the reactants from escaping out of the top or bottom. 

In contrast, high pressure and ternperamres would result in a lower chemical equilibrium constant, which would also require large vapor boilup and reflux flowrates. 

In this section the value of the chemical equilibrium constant at 366 K [(ATeq)366] is changed to explore its effect on the steady-state design of the reactive column. The 

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