Nonflow reactors

Material and energy balances of a nonflow reactor are summarized in Table 7-5. Several catch operations are summarized in Fig. 7-5. 

TABLE 7-5 Material and Energy Balances of a Nonflow Reactor... 

Sohd catalysts are widely employed because they are usually cheap, are easily separated from the reaction medium, and are adaptable to either flow or nonflow reactors. Their drawbacks are lack of specificity and possibly high temperatures and pressures. 

We require a means to follow the progress of reaction, most commonly with respect to changing composition at fixed values of other parameters, such as T and catalytic activity. The method may involve intermittent removal of a sample for analysis or continuous monitoring of an appropriate variable measuring the extent of reaction, without removal of a sample. The rate itself may or may not be measured directly, depending on the type of reactor used. This may be a nonflow reactor, or a continuous-flow reactor, or one combining both of these characteristics. 

Equation (3.3.9) shows that the time required to reach a given fractional conversion does not depend upon the reactor volume or total amount of reagents. That is to say, for a given fractional conversion, as long as C° is the same, 1, 2, or 100 mol of i can be converted in the same time. With flow reactors, for a given C°, the fractional conversion from different sized reactors is the same provided t is the same. Table 3.3.1 compares the appropriate variables from flow and nonflow reactors. 

Table 3.3.1 Comparison of appropriate variables for flow and nonflow reactors.

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