Department of Chemical Engineering, Unit Catalogue 2007/08 |
CE20091 Reaction engineering |
| Credits: 6 |
| Level: Intermediate |
| Semester: 1 |
| Assessment: EX 100% |
| Requisites: |
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Aims: To provide students with the ability to produce engineering designs of ideal reactors where the rate of reaction is controlled by chemical and biochemical reaction kinetics.
Learning Outcomes: After successfully completing this unit students should be able to: * complete problems on heterogeneous catalytic reactors if they are supplied with global rate data; * understand the essential features that control microorganism growth and design fermenters for batch and continuous cultivation to apply a reaction engineering analysis to the controlled growth of microorganisms in biological reactors; * to use global or homogenous kinetic expressions to formulate material and energy balances for batch CSTR and plug flow reactors that exhibit ideal behaviour with reversible and multiple reaction steps. Skills: Analysis and problem solving (taught/facilitated and assessed). Content: Basic reactor designs: batch, CSTR, plug flow; application of stoichiometric tables; chemical equilibrium; definition of reaction rate, elementary reactions and temperature dependence; mass and energy balances developed for ideal batch, CSTR, plug flow reactors; ideal batch reactor: constant volume, variable volumes, variable temperature and pressure; expansion factor, irreversible and reversible reactions; performance comparison between batch, CSTR, plug flow; optimisation: multiple reaction; parallel, series, series-parallel, selectivity and yield, optimum temperature, isothermal, adiabatic and non-adiabatic modes of operation, multiple reactions temperature effects; introduction to biochemical techniques and their potential for transfer to large scale; microorganism growth kinetics and kinetics of product formation; the effects of environmental variables such as pH and temperature on performance. |