CH3010.

Chemical Reaction Engineering

Introduction:
This course shows you how to design, operate and control reactors. You will learn how to combine
kinetics, thermodynamics (equilibrium data), fluid flow, heat transfer and mass transfer
information to achieve this. The emphasis is on the kinetics though.

Summary of syllabus: Reaction kinetics, Homogenous reactions: Batch and Continuous reactors
(isothermal, ideal flow conditions). Introduction of more realistic cases: pressure drop, complex
reactions, recycle reactor. Q1
Adiabatic reactors, heat removal/addition, stability, non-ideal flow (RTD). Quiz 2
Heterogeneous reactions and reactors. Final exam.
~ 5 weeks for each session.

You should be able to (a) design a reactor and (b) choose operating conditions for a particular
result (conversion) for a running reactor. You should be able to design experiments and analyze
data and extract kinetics and mechanistic information.

Most books say “A B”, they don’t tell you what the actual chemical species are. That information
is not needed for sizing the reactor. If you want to actually construct a reactor, then you would
need those information.

What is the RATE of a reaction? It is the rate of production of a chemical. Rate of consumption
is assigned a negative value.

N 2  3H 2  2 NH 3
A  3B  2C
1 1
rA  rB  rC
3 2

dC A
Note: In general, Rate 
dt
Example: NaOH  CH3COOC2 H5  CH3COONa  C2 H5OH occurs in a CSTR. Under steady

dC A
state conditions, the concentration of each species at the outlet is constant.  0 . This does not
dt
mean that there is no reaction or that the rate of production of A is zero.

In homogenous reactions, the rate is usually expressed in mol/s. In heterogeneous reactions, it is

usually given in mol/cm2/s or mol/g/s.

Typically rA  kCAn although more complex expressions also occur.

Reaction kinetics.
Mechanism  kinetics. Usually mechanism is not required and only an overall reaction and rate
expression is needed. To develop new catalysts or to operate in a regime not employed earlier, it
is good to have a thorough understanding.
rate  f T , C  . In simpler cases, we can write rate  f1 T  f 2 C 

E
Arrhenius expression: k  k0e RT . This is empirical. Based on collision theory, the expression is
E E
1
k  k0T 2 e RT and based on activated complex theory (transition state theory) it is k  k0Te RT , but
Arrhenius expression works well and is commonly used.

Example: Find the activation energy and pre-exponent. Find the confidence intervals. (R2 may
not be a good indicator)

Consider an example of speed of honeybee at various temperatures. The relevant equation is

E1
ln  k   ln  k0  
RT
y  a  bx
 V
T (°C) (cm/s) TK 1/T ln(V)
25 0.7 298 0.003356 -0.35667
30 1.8 303 0.0033 0.587787
35 3 308 0.003247 1.098612
40 ? 313 0.003195

In Matlab , use mdl = fitlm(x,y). We can also get the upper and lower bounds (95% confidence
interval) using coefCI(mdl) in Matlab. You can get same information in Excel, if you use Data
Analysis pack

If we use first two points only, we get a slope of -17055.8, i.e. E = 141 kJ/mol, intercept of 56.87,
i.e. k0 = 5 × 1024. Confidence intervals are from – ∞ to + ∞.

If we use three points, then we get a slope of -13377, i.e. E = 114 kJ/mol, and the upper and lower
limits are 340 kJ/mol and -1180 kJ/mol! The intercept is 44.6, k0 = 2.3 × 1019, the upper and lower
limits are 8 × 1058 and 6 × 10-21.

Can we estimate the speed at 40 °C? Not really. 1. We won’t have confidence. 2. Other factors
may come into play.

Still we can estimate and present the value, but add a note of caution saying that we are not very
confident of the value and that other factors may come into play.