Chemical Engineering - Reactor Kinetics and Reactor Science

In chemistry, the chemical reactor lies at the heart of most chemical processes. The design and operation of the reactor often determines the success or failure of the entire process. In the overall process, feedstocks are delivered to the chemical reactor at the appropriate temperature, pressure, and concentrations of species. The chemical reactor ls that essential component in which the feed is converted into the desired products. The chemical reactor is the place in the process where the most value is added: lower-value feeds are converted into higher-value products.

Many chemical reactors can be modeled using three main reactor archetypes: batch, continuous-stirred-tank, and plug-flow reactors. By virtue of their design and the typical operating conditions, many complex chemical reactors can be well approximated by these three simple reactor types. The material and energy balances of these three reactors are sets of first-order, nonlinear ordinary differential equations (ODEs) or nonlinear algebraic equations, or in some situations, differential algebraic equations (DAEs).

The great simplification that has become standard practice in introductory reactor design texts is to neglect the momentum balance and a careful treatment of the fluid flow pattern within the reactor. Concentration, temperature and pressure are therefore the usual dependent variables that are solved as functions of time or distance along the reactor as the independent variable.

During the course:

• An overview of different reaction mechanism is offered;
• A divers series of reactor types is treated;
• Optimalization of reaction and reactor type is allocated;
• The newest developments on Reactor Design and Application will be dealt with.
   

Goal
To develop a fundamental understanding of Reaction Engineering:
This goal will be achieved by solving reaction engineering problems trough reasoning.

After the course:

• You understand the influence of a good reactor design on the product and the conversion;
• You know what the important factors are that influence the process;
• You have an over view of available types of  reactors;
• You can optimize existing processes.
   

Interested in related courses? Take a look at our range of courses in Chemical Engineering