Reactors Chemical Reactors

Afterburning is the most common term used to describe the combustion process employed to control gaseous emissions. The term afterburner is appropriate only to describe a thermal oxidizer used to control gases coming from a process where combustion was not complete. Incinerators are used to combust solid, liquid, and gaseous materials when used in this handbook, the term incinerator will refer to combustion of waste streams. Other terms used to describe combustion equipment include oxidizer, reactor, chemical reactor, combustor, etc. 

Kirkbir, F. Kisakurek, B. Dynamic analysis of an ethane cracking reactor. Chemical Reactor Design and Technology, Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Chemical Reactor Design and Technology de Lasa, H.I., Ed. Martinus Nijhoff Dordrecht, 1986 779-794. 

Chemical reactions require time to occur, require energy or release energy, and require a mechanism for co-mingling reactants. We fulfill these requirements by designing vessels called chemical reactors. Chemical reactors provide... 

The two-phase theory of fluidisation and its application to chemical reactors". Chemical Reactor Theory A Review (Eds L.Lapidus and N.R.Amundson, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1977) p. 583. 

Rase,H.F., Gas-Liquid Reactors, Chemical Reactor Design for Process Plants,Vo. 1 Principles and Techniques, p. 627, Wiley, New York, 1977. 

Figure 1.2 Process design starts with the reactor. The reactor design dictates the separation and recycle problem. (From Smith and Linnhoff, Trans. IChemE, ChERD, 66 195, 1988 reproduced by permission of the Institution of Chemical Engineers.)...

Denbigh, K. G., and Turner, J. C. R., Chemical Reactor Theory, 3d ed., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 1984. 

The search for Turing patterns led to the introduction of several new types of chemical reactor for studying reaction-diffusion events in feedback systems. Coupled with huge advances in imaging and data analysis capabilities, it is now possible to make detailed quantitative measurements on complex spatiotemporal behaviour. A few of the reactor configurations of interest will be mentioned here. 

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... 

Most chemically reacting systems tliat we encounter are not tliennodynamically controlled since reactions are often carried out under non-equilibrium conditions where flows of matter or energy prevent tire system from relaxing to equilibrium. Almost all biochemical reactions in living systems are of tliis type as are industrial processes carried out in open chemical reactors. In addition, tire transient dynamics of closed systems may occur on long time scales and resemble tire sustained behaviour of systems in non-equilibrium conditions. A reacting system may behave in unusual ways tliere may be more tlian one stable steady state, tire system may oscillate, sometimes witli a complicated pattern of oscillations, or even show chaotic variations of chemical concentrations. 

Figure 11 shows a system for controlling the water dow to a chemical reactor. The dow is measured by a differential pressure (DP) device. The controller decides on an appropriate control strategy and the control valve manipulates the dow of coolant. The procedure to determine the overall failure rate, the failure probabiUty, and the reUabiUty of the system, assuming a one-year operating period, is outlined hereia. 

Spent fuel can be stored or disposed of intact, in a once-through mode of operation, practiced by the U.S. commercial nuclear power industry. Alternatively, spent fuel can be reprocessed, ie, treated to separate the uranium, plutonium, and fission products, for re-use of the fuels (see Nuclear REACTORS, CHEMICAL reprocessing). In the United States reprocessing is carried out only for fuel from naval reactors. In the nuclear programs of some other countries, especially France and Japan, reprocessing is routine. 

The most effective phosphoms production technology uses a submerged arc furnace. The submerged arc furnace performs three functions chemical reactor, heat-exchanger, and gas—soHd filter, respectively, each of which requires a significant amount of preparation for the soHd furnace feed materials. 

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. 

Ratio and Multiplicative Feedforward Control. In many physical and chemical processes and portions thereof, it is important to maintain a desired ratio between certain input (independent) variables in order to control certain output (dependent) variables (1,3,6). For example, it is important to maintain the ratio of reactants in certain chemical reactors to control conversion and selectivity the ratio of energy input to material input in a distillation column to control separation the ratio of energy input to material flow in a process heater to control the outlet temperature the fuel—air ratio to ensure proper combustion in a furnace and the ratio of blending components in a blending process. Indeed, the value of maintaining the ratio of independent variables in order more easily to control an output variable occurs in virtually every class of unit operation. 

H. Kramers and K. R. Westerterp, Elements of Chemical Reactor Design and Operation, Academic Press, Inc., New York, 1963, p. 228. 

Product Recovery. Comparison of the electrochemical cell to a chemical reactor shows the electrochemical cell to have two general features that impact product recovery. CeU product is usuaUy Uquid, can be aqueous, and is likely to contain electrolyte. In addition, there is a second product from the counter electrode, even if this is only a gas. Electrolyte conservation and purity are usual requirements. Because product separation from the starting material may be difficult, use of reaction to completion is desirable ceUs would be mn batch or plug flow. The water balance over the whole flow sheet needs to be considered, especiaUy for divided ceUs where membranes transport a number of moles of water per Earaday. At the inception of a proposed electroorganic process, the product recovery and refining should be included in the evaluation to determine tme viabUity. Thus early ceU work needs to be carried out with the preferred electrolyte/solvent and conversion. The economic aspects of product recovery strategies have been discussed (89). Some process flow sheets are also available (61). 

A thermal oxidizer is a chemical reactor in which the reaction is activated by heat and is characterized by a specific rate of reactant consumption. There are at least two chemical reactants, an oxidizing agent and a reducing agent. The rate of reaction is related both to the nature and to the concentration of reactants, and to the conditions of activation, ie, the temperature (activation), turbulence (mixing of reactants), and time of interaction. 

Stanley M. Walas, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, University of Kansas Fellow, American Institute of Chemical Engineers (Section 7, Reaction Kinetics Section 23, Chemical Reactors)... 

Perlmutter, D. Stability of Chemical Reactors, Prentice Hall, Englewood Chffs, NJ (1972). 

Packages exist that use various discretizations in the spatial direction and an integration routine in the time variable. PDECOL uses B-sphnes for the spatial direction and various GEAR methods in time (Ref. 247). PDEPACK and DSS (Ref. 247) use finite differences in the spatial direction and GEARB in time (Ref. 66). REACOL (Ref. 106) uses orthogonal collocation in the radial direction and LSODE in the axial direction, while REACFD uses finite difference in the radial direction both codes are restricted to modeling chemical reactors. 

Next consider the case that uses randomized blocking to eliminate the effect of some variable whose effect is of no interest, such as the batch-to-batch variation of the catalysts in the chemical reactor example. Suppose there are k treatments and n experiments in each treatment. The results from nk experiments can be arranged as shown in the block design table within each block, the various treatments are applied in a random order. Compute the block average, the treatment average, as well as the grand average as before. 

Aris, Elementary Chemical Reactor Analysis, Prentice-Hall, 1969. 

Denbigh and Turner, Chemical Reactor Theory, Cambridge, 1971. 

Froment and Bischoff, Chemical Reactor Analysis and Design, Wiley, 1990. 

Horak and Pasek, Design of Industtial Chemical Reactors from Lahota-tory Data, Heyden, 1978. 

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