Chemical Reaction Engineering
Reaction engineering for chemical engineers: mole balances and the ideal reactors, sizing from rate data, rate laws and stoichiometry, isothermal design with pressure drop, kinetic data analysis, selectivity in multiple reactions, catalytic mechanisms and deactivation, energy balances, multiple steady states and runaway hazards, semibatch and start-up operation, and residence time distributions, applied to an ethyl acetate line and an ethanol-to-ethylene pilot at an ethanol plant in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
CHE-345 Year 3 3 credits 12 lessons · 4 h 12 min ▶ Video lessons coming soon
Offered by HSM University · Chemical Engineering
This is the American version of this course. See the Canadian version.
What you'll learn
- Write mole balances for batch, CSTR, plug-flow and packed-bed reactors, and compare the volumes they need for a given conversion.
- Size single reactors and reactors in series from rate data with Levenspiel plots, and explain why reversible reactions are designed short of equilibrium.
- Build rate laws and stoichiometric tables for liquid and gas-phase reactions, including reversible reactions and gases whose moles change.
- Design isothermal batch, CSTR, plug-flow and packed-bed reactors with the design algorithm, including pressure drop by the Ergun equation.
- Obtain reaction orders, rate constants and activation energies from laboratory data by differential, integral, half-life and nonlinear regression methods.
- Analyze parallel and series reactions, and choose reactor type, temperature, dilution and residence time to maximize selectivity and yield.
- Derive catalytic rate laws from mechanisms with the pseudo-steady-state hypothesis and Langmuir-Hinshelwood kinetics, and plan for catalyst deactivation.
- Combine energy and mole balances for adiabatic and heat-exchanged reactors, including staged beds and the temperature dependence of equilibrium.
- Identify multiple steady states, judge their stability, and assess thermal runaway hazards with process safety principles.
- Model semibatch reactors and the start-up and shutdown of continuous reactors with unsteady balances.
- Measure and interpret residence time distributions, and predict conversion in non-ideal reactors with tanks-in-series, dispersion and segregation models.
- Produce a documented reactor design basis that combines kinetics, equilibrium, energy balance, selectivity, design margins and reactive hazards.
Course content
12 lessons · 4 h 12 min total · final exam
- 1 Mole balances and the ideal reactor types 23 min · quiz
- 2 Conversion and reactor sizing 21 min · quiz
- 3 Rate laws and stoichiometry 21 min · quiz
- 4 Isothermal design of batch, CSTR, PFR and packed-bed reactors 20 min · quiz
- 5 Collecting and interpreting rate data 21 min · quiz
- 6 Multiple reactions: selectivity and yield 21 min · quiz
- 7 Reaction mechanisms, catalysis and catalyst deactivation 21 min · quiz
- 8 Energy balances and non-isothermal reactors 21 min · quiz
- 9 Multiple steady states and thermal runaway 21 min · quiz
- 10 Unsteady operation and semibatch reactors 21 min · quiz
- 11 Residence time distributions and non-ideal reactors 20 min · quiz
- 12 Capstone: designing the esterification pre-reactor 21 min · quiz
- E Final exam 20 questions
Requirements
Recommended background. You can start any course at any time.
Description
Reaction engineering for chemical engineers: mole balances and the ideal reactors, sizing from rate data, rate laws and stoichiometry, isothermal design with pressure drop, kinetic data analysis, selectivity in multiple reactions, catalytic mechanisms and deactivation, energy balances, multiple steady states and runaway hazards, semibatch and start-up operation, and residence time distributions, applied to an ethyl acetate line and an ethanol-to-ethylene pilot at an ethanol plant in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Part of the Engineering stream, typically taken in year 3.