Reaction Engineering

Learning Outcomes

Disciplinary Specific Learning Outcomes

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Extend on the understanding of multiple reactions and how these can be manipulated to maximise products; including unsteady-state operation;
• Consider and evaluate designs and select different types of reactors for different reactions; and reactors (batch and flow)

Subject Specific Practical Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Apply concepts of safety, health and sustainability to complex systems that include chemical reactors;
• Collect and interpret kinetic data from experiments and relate these to scaled up reactors for applications at an industrial scale

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• Explain the thermodynamic, equilibrium and kinetic aspects of chemical reactions that contribute to the energy and mass balances that must be considered in reactor design;
• Understand the principles of chemical reactions and how these are applied to the design of reactors;
• Describe the various reactor types used in continuous and batch processing.

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Interpret heat effects in reactions and to be able to perform energy balances in reactions;

Interpretation of Batch Reactor data: integral and differential methods of analysis of data for constant volume and variable volume cases, first-order, second-order and autocatalytic reactions, and related reversible and irreversible reactions, relating rate equations and mechanisms to experimental data.

Introduction to Reactor Design: mass and energy balance around a volume element, single ideal reactors under steady state conditions, batch, mixed flow and plug flow reactors, space time and space velocity, introduction to semibatch reactors.

Reactor Design for Single Reactions: (with reference to first- and second-order reactions) general graphical comparisons of reactor types; multiple reactor systems including plug flow reactors in series, mixed flow reactors in series, reactors of different types in series, and recycle reactors.

Reactor Design for Multiple Reactions: reversible and irreversible reactions of various order; series, parallel and complex reactions; contacting patterns and product distribution; performance characteristics; kinetic study and design for mixed and plug flow reactors.

Temperature and Pressure Effects: (Single reactions) calculations of heat of reactions and equilibrium constants; general graphical design procedure; optimum temperature progression; energy balance equations in adiabatic and non-adiabatic case; performance of reactor types. (Multiple reactions) product distribution and temperature; temperature and vessel size for maximum production.

Sustainable Reaction Engineering and Industrial applications: Green Chemistry, maximising products and minimising waste, design for efficiency. Industrial applications - examples to be selected from range of applications such as nitration, sulfonation & sulfation, hydrolysis, alkylation esterification, polymerization, oxidation, reduction, and chlorination, which will be discussed with reference to the types of reactors utilised in these unit process.

Practical: Completion of two practical exercises to illustrate the operation of various reactor types.

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching will be done with a combination of formal lectures, paper-based problem-solving sessions and laboratory sessions. There will be a emphasis on active learning techniques, including workshops and tutorial sessions that focus on exercises and problems.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External