CHEMICAL ENGINEERING Page 1 of 3

COURSE: ENCH4RT LECTURER: Dr. D. Lokhat LECTURE

TOPIC: Fixed Bed Reactor Design DISCUSSION 2

Take out a sheet of paper and draw a horizontal line with two vertical lines representing the
entrance and exit of your reactor.

Now draw another vertical line some distance away from the entrance, along the line. Call the
entrance point 1 and the next vertical line point 2.

1 2

CASE A

Let’s consider the first case, which is the isothermal case. In this case, the reaction rate is
changing along the length of the reactor according to the change in concentration of reactants.
There is no temperature change so all we need to use to size the reactor is the material
balance. Assume that we have the reaction A → B. We will further assume that intraparticle
mass transfer resistance is significant, but external mass transfer resistance is negligible.

𝑑𝐹𝐴
= 𝜂 × 𝑟𝐴 (1)
𝑑𝑊

Let us use a simple explicit method to carry out the integration and size the reactor. Assume
that the reaction rate expression is 2nd order:

𝑟𝐴 = 𝑘𝐶𝐴2 (2)
 CHEMICAL ENGINEERING Page 2 of 3

COURSE: ENCH4RT LECTURER: Dr. D. Lokhat LECTURE

TOPIC: Fixed Bed Reactor Design DISCUSSION 2

The only things we really know at the entrance to the reactor are temperature and inlet molar
flowrate of reactant A. We can relate molar flowrate and concentration using the volumetric
flowrate q:

𝐹𝐴
𝐶𝐴 = (3)
𝑞

Or CA can be obtained from the ideal gas law and the mole fraction of species A. For
example:

𝐹𝑡𝑜𝑡 = 𝐹𝐴 + 𝐹𝐵
𝐹𝐴
𝑥𝐴 =
𝐹𝑡𝑜𝑡

𝑃
𝐶𝑡𝑜𝑡 =
𝑅𝑇

𝐶𝐴 = 𝑥𝐴 × 𝐶𝑡𝑜𝑡

At point 1, we write down or calculate the following in sequence:

FA

CA

rA = function (T, CA)

η = function (T, CA) – obtained from a suitable correlation (remember the Thiele modulus
plot for example)

We have enough to estimate the RHS of equation 1. Provided that the distance from point 1
to point 2 is small, the ODE can be reduced to the difference equation:

∆𝐹𝐴
= 𝜂 × 𝑟𝐴 (3)
∆𝑊
 CHEMICAL ENGINEERING Page 3 of 3

COURSE: ENCH4RT LECTURER: Dr. D. Lokhat LECTURE

TOPIC: Fixed Bed Reactor Design DISCUSSION 2

Let ΔW be a small finite value that you set, then you can calculate ΔFA between point 1 and
point 2.

∆𝐹𝐴 = 𝜂 × 𝑟𝐴 × ∆𝑊 (3)

Since you knew the value of FA at point 1, you can calculate the value of FA at point 2. Note
that in this case:

∆𝐹𝐴 = 𝐹𝐴,1 − 𝐹𝐴,2

Now draw another vertical line, representing point 3.

1 2 3

We repeat the procedure, outlined above.

At the beginning of the design you would have probably had a final conversion in mind. This
will fix the final (or exit molar flowrate) that you need. You can progress through as many of
the points on the line as is necessary to reach this exit molar flowrate, then sum up all the ΔW
to find the total catalyst weight required.

Note, the approximation of the differential using the explicit method introduces some error,
and depending on the stiffness (how fast the solution changes) of the equations you could
encounter some instability in the solution.