Homework #7

Chemical Design Reactor

1.
a)
From above figure, we can see that the exit molar flow rate of A at 20 dm 3 is
57.21 mol/min, for which the corresponding conversion is:

F A 0 −F A 100−57.21
X= = =0.428
FA0 100

b) Basically Membrane reactor behaves as equal than PFR

0.35

0.3

0.25
Conversion (X)

0.2

0.15

0.1

0.05

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
V (m3)

c) The conversion of A would be smaller if C were diffusing out instead of

B, because of the stoichiometry.

d) Membrane reactors can be used to increase conversion when the

reaction is thermodynamically limited. If the reaction is exothermic,
increasing the temperature will only drive the reaction further to the
left, and decreasing the temperature will result in a reaction rate so
slow that there is very little conversion. If the reaction is endothermic,
increasing the temperature will move the reaction to the right to favor
a higher conversion; however, for many reactions these higher
temperatures cause the catalyst to become deactivated.
2.

a) Equilibrium conversion for reversible reactions carried out in a

semibatch reactor:

N A0 Xe 2
t=
FB0 [X e+
Kc ( 1− Xe ) ]
Substituting:

1544 mol Xe 2
t=
10.93 mol/dm 3
X[e +
1.08 ( 1−Xe ) ]
X e=0.97

At t = 84,786.15 s the maximum conversion it process reaches is X e=0.97

1
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
Xe

0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0 10000 20000 30000 40000 50000 60000 70000 80000 90000
t (s)

b) and c)