Reacting Systems—Kinetics and Batch Reactors

The reason for this is simple. If the reaction chemistry is not clean (meaning selective), then the desired species must be separated from the matrix of products that are formed and that is costly. In fact the major cost in most chemical operations is the cost of separating the raw product mixture in a way that provides the desired product at requisite purity. The cost of this step scales with the complexity of the un-mixing process and the amount of energy that must be added to make this happen. For example, the heating and cooling costs that go with distillation are high and are to be minimized wherever possible. The complexity of the separation is a function of the number and type of species in the product stream, which is a direct result of what happened within the reactor. Thus the separations are costly and they depend upon the reaction chemistry and how it proceeds in the reactor. All of the complexity is summarized in the kinetics. 

Chapter 7 Reacting Systems—Kinetics and Batch Reactors 

Can we predict these costs beforehand If a conrpany is considering committing capital to a new project, then in order to determine if that capital investment would be a vise one, that is, one that would meet expected rates of return and would be superior to placing the capital in other investments or projects, modeling of the new process must be done to calculate the expected costs of production. This modeling must begin with kinetics. 

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