CHE3044F, 2013

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CHE3044F, 2013 : Reactor Design 1 : TUTORIAL 6

1. (adapted from Fogler, 2006, P4-13). Compound A undergoes a reversible isomerisation reaction, A B . At these conditions, A and B are liquid, miscible and of similar density. The equilibrium constant, KC , for this reaction is 5.8. When a feed of pure A enters a PFR, the conversion to B is 55%. The reaction is elementary. If a second indentical PFR is placed downstream from the rst one and operates at the same temperature, what overall conversion is obtained for the following reactor schemes; (a) Connected in series; (b) Products from the rst reactor are separated and only the remaining pure A is fed to the second reactor. 2. (adapted from Fogler, 2006, P4-15). It is desired to carry out the gaseous reaction A B in an existing tubular reactor, consisting of 50 parallel tubes, 40 ft long with a 0.75-inch inside diameter. Bench scale experiments have given the reaction rate constant for this rst order reaction as 0.00152 s1 at 200F and 0.0740 s1 at 300F. At what temperature should the reactor be operated to give a conversion of A of 80% with a feed rate of 500 lb/h of pure A and an operating presssure of 100 psig. Compound A has a molecular weight of 73. Departures from perfect gas behaviour may be neglected, and the reverse reaction is insignicant at these conditions. 3. The aqueous reversible reaction A B, r = kCA k CB

is to be carried out in a series of reactors with separation of unreacted B between stages. At each stage the reaction goes to 50% of the equilibrium composition. It is required to achieve a 90% conversion of the initial A, when using k = 0.2 min1 and KE = 1. (a) How many stages (reactor-separators) are required when all of B is extracted between the stages (Hint: do you need a design equation for this question?). (b) Find the residence time ( ) with complete extraction when the reactors are CSTRs (c) Find the residence time ( ) with complete extraction when the reactors are PFRs 4. Calculate the total reactor volumes to process 4 L/min to a conversion of 90% for the 2 reaction A B, r = kCA when CA0 = 2 mol/L and k = 0.5 L/(mol.min) for (a) a single CSTR (b) a single PFR (c) two equal volume CSTRs in series (d) a CSTR followed by a PFR, with equal volumes (e) a PFR followed by a CSTR, with equal volumes (f) Do you think the order of the reactors will inuence the conversion? (look at the results in (d) and (e)). Do you expect the same result for rst order reactions? 5. We need to run the reaction;
1 A B, r = kCA

with CA0 = 2 mol/L and k = 0.1 mol.2 L.2 min1 .

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(a) Find an expression for (CA ) in a CSTR (b) What residence time will give 20, 50 and 80% conversion in a CSTR (c) What residence time will give 20, 50 and 80% conversion in a PFR (d) Sketch on the same graph X vs for the CSTR and PFR. Which reactor is the smallest and comment why this is so. 6. At present the elementary liquid phase reaction A + B R + S takes place in a plug ow reactor using equimolar quantities of A and B. The conversion is 96% and CA0 = CB0 = 1 mol/L. (a) If a mixed reactor ten times as large as the plug ow reactor where hooked up in series with the exisiting unit, which unit should come rst and by what fraction can the production be increased (i.e. the overall conversion must remain constant and the ow rate must increase) (b) Does the concentration level of the feed aect the answer, and if so, in what way? 7. At present the conversion is 2/3 for our elementary second-order liquid reaction, 2A 2R when operating in a isothermal plug ow reactor with a recycle ratio of unity. What will be the conversion of the reactor when the recycle stream is shut o? 8. A reactant A decomposes according to a rst order reaction A R and we are given two feed streams Feed 1 : CA0 = 1, FA0 = 1 Feed 2 : CA0 = 2, FA0 = 2 which we want to process down to CA,out = 0.25. For stream 1 alone in a plug ow reactor, the volume needed is V1 . Now that we have two streams how should we contact them so as to minimise the total volume and still maintain CA,out = 0.25. What is the minimum volume? (Multiples of V1 ). 10. (Class test, March, 2012, 33 marks). The reversible gas phase reaction A R+S

is to commercialised. R is the desired product and is to be made from a pure feed of gaseous A at 4 atm and owing at 100 L/min. The reaction kinetics may be assumed to be elementary. The following investigations on the reaction are carried out in order to determine the kinetics and the best reactor conguration. (a) A mixture of gaseous A contaning 50% inerts are placed in a constant volume batch reactor at 487 K and the following isothermal total pressure data is collected as a function of time; time total pressure [atm] 0 8 7.6 min 10 24 hours 11

From these data calculate the conversion at 7.6 min and 24 hours and using these values, show that the equilibrium constant for this reaction is KE = 0.225 mol.L1 and the rate constant is k1 = 0.1 min1 . (10)

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(b) Show that the equilibrium conversion in a ow system which is fed with pure gaseous A and is operating at constant pressure of 4 atm and 487 K is 0.832. (5) (c) What is the size of a PFR that is fed with pure gaseous A and operates at 4 atm and 487 K. The reactor must achieve a conversion that is 90% of the equilibrium conversion. (3) (d) A CSTR is now added after the PFR in part (c). The CSTR will operate at 1 atm and the same temperature as the PFR. The CSTR must operate at 90% of equilibrium conversion achievable in the CSTR. What is the size of the CSTR and the overall conversion of the process. (Hint : (i) does pressure aect the reaction, (ii) base the conversion on the number of moles entering the rst reactor, although this is not the only way to solve the problem) (7) (e) The products from the PFR in (c) are now recycled back to the inlet, isothermally and isobarically, without separation at a recycle ratio of 2. What is the equilibrium conversion from this reactor system. (think, no calculations required) (1) (f) A CSTR operating at 4 atm and 487 K is followed by a separator that can separate all of A from the reaction mixture. Pure A is recycled back to the process at the same pressure and temperature as the reactor. This system is now used to process the same gaseous stream of pure A. The reactor will operate at 90% of the equilibrium conversion in the reactor. Calculate the size of the CSTR and the recycle ow rate. (6) (g) Your smart engineer friend has suggested that to aviod further separation steps in the process proposed in (f), it is much simpler to use a CSTR followed by a separator that will produce pure R. Then all of the A and S will be recycled back to the reactor at the same temperature and pressure. In this way pure R can be produced in one step. Can this process be used to produce pure R. (think, no calculations required) (1) 11. (Final Exam, June 2012, Question 2, 24 marks). The reaction A+B R is to be commercialised. The kinetics of this reaction is non-elementary. Experimental evidence shows that the reaction order with respect to A is 2 and the the reaction order with respect to B is -1. Two feed streams are available. Stream one contains pure liquid A whose molar ow rate is 1 mol.min1 at a concentration of 40 mol.L1 . Stream two contains pure liquid B whose molar ow raet is 1 mol.min1 at a concentration of 50 mol.L1 . (a) The two streams are mixed and fed to a PFR with a volume of 100 L at 50C. The conversion is 90%. Determine the rate constant (8) (b) The two streams are mixed and fed to two equally sized CSTRs in series. What is the volume of required of each CSTR to achieve a conversion of 90%. (8) (c) The two feed streams are vapourised at 150C and 3 atm, mixed, and the gas mixture is fed into a PFR. The same kinetic rate equation can be used in the vapour phase. If the conversion needs to be 90% what is the size of the reactor. The activation energy for this reaction is 100 kJ.mol 1 (8)

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These next 2 questions are not for the tut, but I have left them in since they are interesting and very relevant to the real world, although they might be posed in a hypothetical way. 12. A commercial installation produces R at 40 kmol/h by hydrolysis in a single mixed reactor from a feed stream containing 1 kmol/m3 of reactant A. Because of the large excess of water used, the reaction may be considered to be rst order, A R, even though it is bi-molecular. The euent stream from the reactor goes to a counter-current extraction column in which R is quantitatively extracted. Two percent of the incoming A passes through the system unreacted. Fixed and operating costs for this process are R20/h, reactant cost is R1.0/kmol, and R can be sold at R1.32/kmol. It is suspected that the plant is not operating at optimum conditions. Therefore, you have been asked to study the operations with the aim of optimising them. (a) What are the present prots in an hourly basis (prots = income - operating costs expenses) (b) How should the installation be operated (feed rate of A, conversion of A across the reactor and overall, and production rate of R) to maximise the prots? What are these prots on a hourly basis. note : All R produced can be sold. Separation equipment is exible and has been designed to adapt to large changes in capacity. 13. (a more challenging question with real optimisaton). The reaction by which R is formed, A R, has the rate equation rA = (0.01 L.mol 1 .h1 )CA CR From a feed of pure A (100 mol/L, R0.10/mol), 1000 mol/h of R are to be produced using either a mixed reactor alone or a mixed reactor followed by an A-R separator, in which case unreacted A may be recycled and re-used. The separator operates by an extraction process which, because of a favourable phase equilibrium, yields streams of essentially pure A and pure R. Its cost is R8/h+R0.01/L of uid treated. The hourly cost of the reactor is R8+R0.01/L of reactor. Consider the density of all the A-R mixtures to be constant. What system (i) reactor alone and (ii) reactor with separator, is the most economical, and what will be the unit cost of R produced by this arrangement?