Laminar Flow Tubular Reactors

Figure 7. Monomer conversion vs, polymerization time in the helical tubular reactor laminar flow regime...

Tubular reactor, laminar flow 0.52 Fig. 6-7, solid curve... 

A pipe or tubular reactor (laminar flow reactor)... 

In Sect. 3.2, the development of the design equation for the tubular reactor with plug flow was based on the assumption that velocity and concentration gradients do not exist in the direction perpendiculeir to fluid flow. In industrial tubular reactors, turbulent flow is usually desirable since it is accompanied by effective heat and mass transfer and when turbulent flow takes place, the deviation from true plug flow is not great. However, especially in dealing with liquids of high viscosity, it may not be possible to achieve turbulent flow with a reasonable pressure drop and laminar flow must then be tolerated. 

Fig. 6-7 Residence-time distribution in a laminar-flow tubular reactor (segregated flow)...

In a continuous tank-type reactor, the flow should not follow preferential paths. In the continuous tubular reactor, the flow can be in extreme cases laminar (not desired) or turbulent (desired), but without dead volume. The type of flow may cause radial and longitudinal diffusion effects causing radial or axial temperature and concentration gradients and consequently affecting the chemical reaction. 

In CSTR reactors, the flow has preferential paths. In continuous tubular reactors, the flow may be laminar, turbulent, and have dead volumes. The flow may cause radial and longitudinal diffusion effects and therefore to result temperature gradients and radial/axial concentration. Therefore, the flow may affect the chemical reaction. 

Example 9.11 Which type of isothermal reactor would produce the narrowest possible distribution of chain lengths in a free-radical addition polymerization continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR, or backmix), batch (assume perfect stirring in each of the previous), plug-flow tubular, or laminar-flow tubular ... 

Flow in tubular reactors can be laminar, as with viscous fluids in small-diameter tubes, and greatly deviate from ideal plug-flow behavior, or turbulent, as with gases, and consequently closer to the ideal (Fig. 2). Turbulent flow generally is preferred to laminar flow, because mixing and heat transfer... 

RESIDENCE TIME DISTRIBUTION FOR A LAMINAR FLOW TUBULAR REACTOR... 

Experimental work with styrene in tubular reactors has been reported (39) where viscosities were relatively low due to conversions below 32%. However, Lynn ( ) has concluded that a laminar flow tubular reactor for styrene polymerization is probably technically infeasible due to the distortion in velocity... 

A summary of the nine batch reactor emulsion polymerizations and fifteen tubular reactor emulsion polymerizations are presented in Tables III IV. Also, many tubular reactor pressure drop measurements were performed at different Reynolds numbers using distilled water to determined the laminar-turbulent transitional flow regime. 

The styrene conversion versus reaction time results for runs in the laminar flow regime are plotted in Figure 8. Both the rate of polymerization and the styrene conversion increase with increasing flow rate as noted previously (7). The conversion profile for the batch experimental run (B-3) is presented as a dashed line for comparison. It can be seen that the polymerization rates for runs with (Nj e e 2850 are greater than the corresponding batch polymerization with a conversion plateau being reached after about thirty minutes of reaction. This behavior is similar to the results obtained in a closed loop tubular reactor (7J) and is probably due to an excessively rapid consumption of initiator in a... 

The maximum rate of polymerization has been confirmed to occur at the laminar-turbulent flow transition. The rate of polymerization was observed to be maximum at the transition for both straight reactors as well as for the helically-coiled reactor for which the transition is at a Reynolds number higher than that of the straight tube. The helically coiled tubular reactor is of industrial interest since it is much more compact and, consequently, the cost and the temperature control problems are more tractable. 

Example 8.9 Find the temperature distribution in a laminar flow, tubular heat exchanger having a uniform inlet temperature and constant wall temperature Twall- Ignore the temperature dependence of viscosity so that the velocity profile is parabolic everywhere in the reactor. Use art/P = 0.4 and report your results in terms of the dimensionless temperature... 

Chapter 3 introduced the basic concepts of scaleup for tubular reactors. The theory developed in this chapter allows scaleup of laminar flow reactors on a more substantive basis. Model-based scaleup supposes that the reactor is reasonably well understood at the pilot scale and that a model of the proposed plant-scale reactor predicts performance that is acceptable, although possibly worse than that achieved in the pilot reactor. So be it. If you trust the model, go for it. The alternative is blind scaleup, where the pilot reactor produces good product and where the scaleup is based on general principles and high hopes. There are situations where blind scaleup is the best choice based on business considerations but given your druthers, go for model-based scaleup. 

McLaughlin, H. S., Mallikarjun, R., and Nauman, E. B., The Effect of Radial Velocities on Laminar Flow, Tubular Reactor Models, AIChE J., 32, 419-425 (1986). 

FIGURE 13.7 Performance of a laminar flow, tubular reactor for the bulk polymerization of styrene Tin = 35°C and F = 1 h. (a) Stability regions, (b) Monomer-conversion within the stable region. 

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