Chemical Reaction Engineering

Interlude II

In the previous chapter, we focused our attention on how mixing can be accounted for in reactor analysis. In this part, we will give examples describing how mixing (or lack of it) can be used to our advantage, for improved conversions, yields and selectivity.

Limits of mean field theory

So far in this book, we assumed that the mean field theory of chemical kinetics hold true. In other words, the rate of the reactions is proportional to the average concentrations of the species in the reactor volume. This assumption can be valid for homogeneous systems, where the reaction rate is comparable to the rate of mixing provided by molecular collisions or through mechanical stirring. However, when dealing with catalytic reactions, we ...