Even Semester (Academic Year: 2018-19) 15CHE 111: Introduction to Chemical Engineering

Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore

Amrita School of Engineering
Department of Chemical Engineering & Materials Science
15CHE 111: Introduction to Chemical Engineering

Course Project
Due date: Tuesday, April 23, 2019 Time: 5.00 pm
The report (typed or scanned) must be submitted along with the Excel sheets

Guidelines for Introduction to Chemical Engineering Project

1. This project is 10% of total points of the course

2. You need to report all the quantities in SI units only.
3. The soft copy of the report along with the spread sheet needs to be submitted through AUMS. There
will be link available in AUMS. Note: Make sure you submit at least 10 min before the due date and
time.
4. No form of plagiarism is accepted. If any student does so, zero marks will be assigned to all of them
involved.
5. All the units must be in SI (Irrespective of which units are given)
6. The First page (cover page) should consist of (All Times new roman font size 15)
a. Subject Title
b. Project Title
c. Student Name
d. Student Register number
7. Project report must consist of
a. Introduction
b. Process flow diagram (You may draw it neatly and take snapshot of it and attach in the report)
c. Properties of all the streams in the form of a table
d. Detailed calculations of all the variables using material and energy balances.
e. Reactor duty, heating / cooling requirement for the reactor and the heat transfer area required.
f. The heater or cooler duty, steam or cooling water required and the area of heat transfer required
for each heater/cooler.
g. Power requirement for all the pressure changing devices.
h. Profit / Economic calculations for one year of operation - Raw material cost, equipment cost,
operating cost and product cost only. The total operating cost can be found from the equation
provided in the problem discussed in Chapter 14 of Solen and Harb.

Course Instructor: Dr. Udaya Bhaskar Reddy Ragula

Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore – 641 112. INDIA

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 Even Semester (Academic Year: 2018-19) 15CHE 111: Introduction to Chemical Engineering

8.Report Preparation Guidelines

a. Times New Roman with a font size of 11, Line spacing of 1.5 and no paragraph spacing
should be used throughout the report.
b. 1.5” margin should be provided on left and 1” margins shod be provided on all other sides.
c. All the paragraphs should be started at the extreme left side of the page (i.e., Just next to the
margin).
d. All the text should be justified (Select the text and press Ctrl+J to justify) – This gives a clean
look for the report.
e. All the figures and tables with their titles should be center aligned. For the figures, the title
should be at the bottom where as for the tables the title should be at the top.
f. All the equations must be typed in Microsoft word using equation editor and shouldn’t be
copied from other available sources
g. The page numbers should be at the bottom right corner, neatly typed and should be continued
from the previous experiment (This can be done by Insert  Page Number  Format Page
Numbers)

Course Instructor: Dr. Udaya Bhaskar Reddy Ragula

Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore – 641 112. INDIA

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Even Semester (Academic Year: 2018-19) 15CHE 111: Introduction to Chemical Engineering

Important note: If the problem statement has any missing data, you may get it from the standard data
base or any Chemical Engineering books and mention the same in the report. You may refer to Solen and
Harb, Introduction to Chemical Engineering: Tools for Today and Tomorrow, 5 th Edition, 2011.

Problem Definition and Data

Methanol is an important solvent, which is majorly used in organic synthesis. This is originally
produced from oxidation of methane produced from fossil fuels. Due to depletion of fossil fuels, other
methods are developed. One such production process is the production of methanol from the gas phase
hydrogenation of carbon dioxide using a catalyst at high pressures and moderate temperatures. This
process reduces the carbon foot print.

The gas phase reaction is given by

CO 2 +3 H 2 →CH 3 OH +H 2 O . In reality, this is a reversible
reaction. Since, this is the first course in Chemical Engineering, the reaction will be treated as an

 mol 
 rA     k pCO2 pH 2 pCO2 & pH 2
irreversible reaction. The rate of reaction is given by  lit sec  . Where, are
partial pressures of carbon dioxide and hydrogen. The rate constant is given by the Arrhenius

 mol   6000 
k 2 
 2 x10 2 exp    ; T in K
lit.sec. kPa   T 
expression,  .
The heat of the reaction as function of temperature is given by

kJ
ΔH Reaction
[ mol . K ]
=−49 .18−0 . 02T
.
The feed consists of separate streams of hydrogen and carbon dioxide at atmospheric pressure and 25 oC
in the given mole ratio (Please refer to the spread sheet attached). The feed streams need to pressurized
to the reactor pressure (assigned to you. See the attached spread sheet). The temperature of the
pressurized feed streams must be brought to the reactor temperature (assigned to you. See the spread
sheet attached). The reactor is continuously stirred tank reactor for the gas phase reaction. The
conversion in the reactor is 80% (irrespective of pressure and temperature). It is required to produce
1000 kgmoles/min methanol. The product from the reactor is cooled 30 oC to separate out methanol and
water as liquid from the unreacted products in separator #1. The liquid stream needs to be separated

Course Instructor: Dr. Udaya Bhaskar Reddy Ragula

Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore – 641 112. INDIA

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Even Semester (Academic Year: 2018-19) 15CHE 111: Introduction to Chemical Engineering

further in to methanol and water using a flash separator (separator #2). What temperature you would
recommend for separator #2 (Give only a logical answer).

Technical Information:
1. The pressure drop in each cooler or heater (both are heat exchangers) is 25 psi. The pressure
drop in the reactor is 30 psi. The minimum LMTD required for all heaters and coolers is 7 oC.
2. The cooling water is available at 18 oC and the outlet cooling water temperature must not
exceed 36oC. The heat transfer coefficient for water cooled exchangers is 200W/(m 2 K).
3. For all heating purposes, saturated steam is available 350 oC and is allowed only to condense
(saturated liquid). The enthalpy of vaporization of water is 2100 kJ/(kg.K). If steam is used as a
heat exchanging fluid, the heat transfer coefficient is 1200 W/(m 2 K).
4. For all cooling purposes, cold water is available at a temperature of 20 oC from cooling tower.
The maximum coolant temperature to which it can be raised is 36 oC.
5. The cost of reactants and products are:
a. Carbon dioxide – Rs. 2800 per ton
b. Hydrogen – Rs. 1120 per kg
c. Methanol – Rs. 35,000 per ton
d. Water- Rs. 27.74 per ton
6. The cost of all the equipment can be found using Table 13.2 from Solen & Harb.
7. The M&S index for 2019 is 2190.

Project Evaluation – 100 Points

Evaluation:
Points Obtained:
Process Flow Diagram - 10
Material Balance - 20
Energy Balance - 20
Reactor Design - 20
Economics / Profit - 10
Report - 20

Important Information

1. The references are not limited. You can refer to any other relevant articles available on the
internet.
2. This document should not be uploaded at any of the public websites like Scribd, Facebook and
Twitter and so on.
3. Any updates of this document will be updated in AUMS / WhatsApp.
Course Instructor: Dr. Udaya Bhaskar Reddy Ragula

Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore – 641 112. INDIA

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Even Semester (Academic Year: 2018-19) 15CHE 111: Introduction to Chemical Engineering

Wish you all the best!!!

Course Instructor: Dr. Udaya Bhaskar Reddy Ragula

Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore – 641 112. INDIA

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