WELCOME TO

The world of
CHEMICAL REACTION
ENGINEERING

MIH IR P.SH A H
FACULTY OF TECHNOLOGY,
DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

D D U , NA D IA D
Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

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 Top Global Player in Chemical Engineering
in 2009

Rank Company Sales and $ bn

1 BASF (Germany) 75
2 Dow (U.S.) 60
3 Ineous (U.K.) 40
4 Lyondal Basell 40
5 ExxonMobil Chemicals 40
27 Reliance Industries 15
(India)

Ref: Chemical Engineering News 2009

Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

Chemical Sector

Category TPA $/kg E-factor (kg/kg)

Petroleum 106 – 108 0.05 0.1
Refining
Commodity 104 – 106 0.05 – 1 1-3
chemicals
Fine Chemicals 102 – 104 1-5 2-10
Food 0.5 – 25
Materials 0-_
Pharma 10 – 103 10 -__ 10-100

Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

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 About Chemical Reaction Engineering and
Engineering

 One feature that distinguish the

education of Chemical Engineering
from that of other engineering is an
exposure to basic concept of Chemical
Reaction Engineering.

 Charls Hills, An Introduction to Chemical Engineering

Kinetics and Reactor Design

Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

About Chemical Reaction Engineering and

Engineering

 Chemical Reaction Engineering is that

engineering activity which concern with
the exploitation of chemical reactions
on commercial scale.

 Octave Levenspiel, Introduction to Chemical Reaction

Engineering

Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

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 About Chemical Reaction Engineering
and Engineering

 Typical tasks of Chemical Engineers are

 Design of chemical processes

 Maintain and operate chemical processes

 Fix some perceived problems

 Increase capacity or selectivity at minimum cost and time

Lanny schmidt, The Engineering of Chemical Reactions

Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

Chemical Process Industry Recycle

Reactor
Purification

Separation

Raw Materials Products

Raw Material Products

By Products or waste
Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

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 Block Diagram of
Chemical Process

Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

Hydro-dealkylation of Toluene

C7H8 + H2  C6H6 + CH4

Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

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 Unit Operations and Processes

OUTLINE OF UNIT OUTLINE OF UNIT

OPERATIONS PROCESSES
Distillation Alkylation (Petroleum organic
chemicals)
Evaporation Calcinations (Cement)
Extraction Combustion (Process heating,
Boiler house)
Fluid Handling Dehydration (Inorganic Industries)
Heat Exchanger Esterification (Food,
Pharmaceutical)
Size reduction Halogenations (organic Chemicals)
Membrane separation Hydrolysis (Organic Chemicals)

Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

Which step is optimum step?

 Chemical Reactor Design????
 Should not only be cost of reactor

 If one selects lower cost reactor, but products leaving

may be such that, their treatment required much higher
cost than alternative design.
 So one needs a broad understanding of topic
Reactor Design through a subject called
CRE.

Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

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 Chemical Reaction Engineering
(CRE)

 So, how do we describe Chemical Reaction

Engineering?
 CRE deals with chemically reactive systems of
engineering significance.

 Chemical reaction engineering is the discipline that

quantifies the interactions of transport
phenomena and reaction kinetics in relating reactor
performance to operating conditions and feed variables.

Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

(Source: ISCRE website)

What Chemical Reaction Engineering

(CRE)) will do ??
(CRE
 CRE is needed in the development of new technologies and the
improvement of existing technologies.
 Search for alternative processes to replace old
ones
 novel reactors (use of metallocene catalysts)
 Find routes to make a product from different
feedstock
 novel processes for synthesis-gas production
 Hydrocarbon production from synthesis gas
 Biodiesel production
 Reduce/eliminate unwanted byproducts
 fuel-cells for automobiles
 NOx reduction
Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

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 Scope of Chemical Reaction Engineering

 Petroleum Refining, Petrochemicals and

Pharmaceuticals
 Biotechnology, Advanced Materials, Microelectronics
and energy from non-fossil fuels
 Environmental, pollution prevention and sustainable
development
New Frontiers
 New analytical instruments providing quantitative
information about the species
 New computational resources
 Multiscale approach

Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

CRE is perhaps the key course that

differentiates Chemical
Engineering & Engineering
Chemistry from other engineers.

Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

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 What’s involved in reactor design ?
Mass
Transfer
Heat Fluid
Transfer Mechanics

REACTANT(S) PRODUCT
REACTOR
(Ethylene)
(Ethane)

Thermodynamics
Economics
Chemistry
Reaction Reaction
Kinetics Kinetics
Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad
What is missing here?

Chemistry

What you see is ethane is decomposing to ethylene.

Single reaction, isothermal, ideal reactor either CSTR and/or PFR,

No heating/cooling requirements in reactors hardly encounters.

Real reactors are extremely complex, multiple reactions, multiphase

and intricate flow patterns.

Chemical Reactions:
C2H6  C2H4 + H2
C2H6  C2H2 + 2H2
3C2H6  C6H6 + 6H2
C2H6  2C + 3H2
Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

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 Chemistry Vs Chemical Engineering
Chemist
To create new substances
To investigate all pathways to produce them Large equipment
and study its properties
Works in test tubes
Small quantities
Batch constant-T experiments
Small containers
A catalyst is added and reactions proceed
with time
Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad
CRE Applications
Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad
Chemical Engineering
Works with large quantities
Continuous/semibatch mode
Steady state operations (all parameters such
as T, P, liquid livel, flow rates,
compositions, etc. are all constant with time
Feed streams and product streams are
continuously fed and withdrawn from the
process
To investigate most optimal technology and
Scaling up operation
Works closely with mechanical, electrical,
civil, and metallurgical engineers in order
to design and operate the physical
equipment in a plant
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 CRE Application: H2SO4 Production

SO2
+
Air

SO3

H2SO4

Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

CRE Application -Ethylene Production

• Ethylene is used for manufacturing polyethylene -
the world's most widely used plastic
• NOVA Chemicals and Dow Chemical at Joffre
• The highest capacity of any ethylene production site
in the world.
• largest single ethane based cracker in the world.

C2H6  C2H4 + H2

(High-temperature tubular reactors)

Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

Picture Source: Linde website

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 CRE Application - SMOG Modeling

Allows us estimate the

extent of smog formation ...

Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

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 CRE Application:
Reducing SMOG by Catalytic Converter

Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

CRE Application: Biodiesel Production

Three basic methods for biodiesel production:

•Base catalyzed trans-esterification of the oil

•Acid catalyzed trans-esterification of the oil
•Conversion of the oil to its fatty acids and then to biodiesel.

Oil  Glycerine + biodiesel

Reaction time varies between 1 and 8 hours

Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

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 CRE Application:
Large-scale growth of Stem Cells

 The challenge is to grow large

quantities of viable cell….

Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

CRE Application: Pharmacokinetics

CRE can be applied to describe

humanbody-drug interaction

Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

http://habanero.ibme.wustl.edu/PK-model.jpg

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 CRE Application: Fuel Cells

Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

CRE Application – Micro-channel reactors

channel

Microchannels on a wafer

channel

Compact reactors for compact fuel cells

Production of hazardous chemicals in controlled quantities
Potential application in bio-chemical systems.
Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

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 What do we expect to learn in the Chemical
Reaction Engineering course ??

• In CRE, we will develop a general methodology useful in

approaching a variety of systems

– chemical (e.g. chemical production, pollution abatement)

– biochemical and biological (e.g. enzyme growth, stem cell growth)
– electrochemical (e.g. fuel cells)
– ecological

where engineering of reactions is needed

Chemical Kinetics & Chemical Reactor Design

will be at the core of this course

Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

 Chemical Kinetics
 deals with how fast a reaction proceeds (Kinetics)

 deals with mechanism of reaction,

 deals with the effects of P,T, composition and catalysts on

reaction rates

 Reactor Design
 deals with size of reactor

 deals with type/configuration of reactor

 involves consideration of heat and mass transfer.

Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

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 Multiple reactions
Mass transfer with chemical
reactions

Non-isothermal operation,
Multiple steady state conditions
Modeling real reactors, RTD, Dispersion
and segragation
Design of chemical reactors: PFR, CSTR, Batch,
Semi-Batch, Packed Bed
Analysis of rate data, Laboratory
Experiments, Least square analysis
Mole Rate Stoichio Diffusi Contact
Energy
Bala Laws metry on ing
Balance
nceP. Shah, DDU, Nadiad
Mihir Pattern

Course Block Diagram

Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

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 TEXTBOOKS/RESOURCES

 Course Textbook
 Chemical Reaction Engineering
by Octave Levenspiel, 3rd Edition, Wiley & Sons

 Reference Texts
 Elements of Chemical Reaction Engineering

by H.Scott Fogler, 4th Edition, Prentice Hall

Mihir P. Shah, DDU, Nadiad

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