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Equipment: M
oDS™, Microsoft Excel
Activities:
nalytical solution to a system with two parallel reactions.
Part A. A
Part B. System calibration - Fitting rate coefficients against experimental data at low and
high temperature regimes.
Solution
Part A
The mole balance for HO2 in a batch reactor in terms of concentrations can be expressed
as follows
dC HO
dt
2
= − k 1 C HO2 C H − k 2 C HO2 C H = − (k 1 + k 2 )C HO2 C H
Using k t = k 1 + k 2 we get
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VirtuaLab. 5 - Calibrating parallel reactions
dC HO
dt
2
= − k t C HO2 C H (4)
Before performing any integration, we need to express equation (4) in terms of just one
dependent variable, either CHO2 or CH . Noting that the amounts of HO2 and H that have
reacted at any time t are equal, we can write equation (5)
C HO t
2 dC HO
∫ 2
C HO [ (C H )0 − (C HO ) + C HO ] = ∫ − kt dt (7)
(C HO ) 2 2 0 2 t0
2 0
After mathematical integration and some algebraic manipulation, we get equation (8) or an
equivalent expression.
(C HO ) − (C H )0
C HO2 = (C H )
2 0
0
(8)
1− (C HO ) exp(−k 1 +k 2 )t
2 0
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VirtuaLab. 5 - Calibrating parallel reactions
Part B
1. k1,0 = 5.82 m3/mol s and k2,0 = 4.85E07 m3/mol s are the results from the first fitting
procedure. Figure 2 presents the comparison between experimental and predicted data for
T = 300 K and T = 3300 K. It is evident that a better agreement was obtained at T = 300 K. At
T = 3300 K the general trend of the experimental data is predicted but the experimental
values are generally underestimated.
Figure 2. C
omparison between predicted and experimental data at a. T = 300 K, b. T = 3300 K. Preexponential
factors we fitted only to low temperature experimental data.
3. k1,0 = 1.85 m3/mol s and k2,0 = 5.07E07 m3/mol s are the final results of the final calibration
procedure using both low and high temperature data. Figure 3 presents the new
comparison between experimental and predicted data for T = 300 K and T = 3300 K. With
the new pre-exponential factors, the behavior at the different operating conditions, both
low and high temperature, are well predicted.
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VirtuaLab. 5 - Calibrating parallel reactions
Figure 3. C
omparison between predicted and experimental data at a. T = 300 K, b. T = 3300 K. Pre-exponential
factors were fitted with low and high temperature experimental data.
5. Figure 4 presents the effect of temperature on the kinetic constants k1 and k2. It is
evident that at low temperatures, k1 is significantly lower than k2 (close to two orders of
magnitude lower). This suggests a dominant effect of the reaction associated with k2 at low
temperatures. However, at high temperatures, both constants have comparable values,
which means that both reactions have a significant influence on the consumption rate of
HO2. This can explain the different fitting results obtained when using a) only low
temperature data and b) low and high temperature data. When we fitted k1,0 and k2,0 using
only low temperature data, MoDS™ focused most of its effort on calibrating k2,0, as reaction
R2 has the dominant effect over HO2 concentration at low temperature. This justifies the
good agreement between experimental and predicted values in Figure 2 at T = 300 K. As
MoDS™ detects the limited sensitivity to k1,0 pf the HO2 concentration behavior at low
temperatures, it is misled and cannot find its optimal value at high temperatures, leading
to the mispredictions shown in Figure 2 at T = 3300 K. When calibration is performed using
data at both low and high temperature, MoDS™ is able to detect the relative importance of
k1,0 and k2,0 at different temperatures and can identify the optimal combination of values
for the two kinetic constants.
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VirtuaLab. 5 - Calibrating parallel reactions
Figure 4. E
ffect of temperature on the kinetic constant for reactions (R1) and ( R2).
Figure 5. l n(k) vs 1/T plot.
References
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VirtuaLab. 5 - Calibrating parallel reactions
[3] Mueller, M. A., Kim, T. J., Yetter, R. A. and Dryer, F. L. (1999), Flow reactor studies and
kinetic modeling of the H2/O2 reaction. Int. J. Chem. Kinet., 31: 113–125.
doi:10.1002/(SICI)1097-4601(1999)31:2<113::AID-KIN5>3.0.CO;2-0