CHE171 CHEMICAL REACTION ENGINEERING 1

PROBLEM SET 1
1. The maximum allowable temperature for a reactor is 800 K. At present our
operating setpoint is 780K, the 20K margin of safety account for fluctuating
feed, sluggish controls, etc. Now, with a more sophisticated control system
we would be able to raise our setpoint to 792 K with the same margin of
safety that we now have. But how much can the reaction rate, hence
production rate be raised by this change if the reaction taking place in the
reactor has an activation energy of 175 kJ/mol? Answer: 0.66
2. On typical summer days, field crickets nibble, jump and chirp now and then.
But at night when great numbers congregate, chirping seems to become a
serious business and tends to be in unison. In 1897, A.E. Dolbear reported
that this social chirping rate was dependent on the temperature is given by:
(number of chirps in 15 s) + 40 = (temperature, 0F)
Assuming that the chirping rate is a direct measure of the metabolic rate, find
the activation energy in kJ/mol of these crickets in the temperature range 60
80 0F. Answer: 45kJ/mol
3. In order to study the photochemical decay of aqueous bromine in bright
sunlight, a small quantity of liquid bromine was dissolved in water contained
in a glass battery jar and placed in direct sunlight. The following data were
obtained:

(a) Determine whether the reaction rate is zero, first, or second order in
bromine, and calculate the reaction rate constant in units of your choice.
(b) Assuming identical exposure conditions, calculate the required hourly rate
of injection of bromine (in pounds) into a sunlit body of water, 25,000 gal in
volume, in order to maintain a sterilizing level of bromine of 1.0 ppm. (Ans.:
0.43 lb/h)
(c) What experimental conditions would you suggest if you were to obtain
more data?
4. The irreversible liquid-phase reaction
AB+C
is carried out in a batch reactor. The following data were collected during the
course of the reaction:

Determine the reaction order using equal area differentiation and finite
difference method.
5. The reaction
is believed to occur by the following mechanism:

Write the rate law for this reaction. Note: Since the reaction is in aqueous
solution, the effective concentration of water remains constant. Thus the rate
of the forward reaction in the first step can be written as