Elements of Chemical Reaction Engineering, 5th Edition

14. Mass Transfer Limitations in Reacting Systems

Giving up is the ultimate tragedy.

—Robert J. Donovan

or

It ain’t over ’til it’s over.

—Yogi Berra NY Yankees

Overview. Many industrial reactions are carried out at high temperatures where the overall rate of reaction is limited by the rate of mass transfer of reactants between the bulk fluid and the catalytic surface. By mass transfer, we mean any process in which diffusion plays a role. Under these circumstances our generation term becomes a little more complicated as we cannot directly use the rate laws discussed in Chapter 3. Now we have to consider the fluid velocity and the fluid properties when writing the mole balance. In the rate laws and catalytic reaction steps described in Chapter ...