[Discussion Topics for Unit 8 (not for submission)]

1. The second-order liquid-phase reaction A ® B + C is to be carried out isothermally. The

entering concentration of A is 1.0 mol/dm3. The specific reaction rate is 1.0 dm3/mol∙min. A
number of used reactors (shown below) are available, each of which has been characterized by
an RTD.

Reactor t (min) s (min) Cost (S$)

(I) 2 1.99 10,000

(II) 4 4 20,000
(III) 4 2.83 20,000
(IV) 4 2.31 20,000
(V) 2 2 10,000

(a) You have S$20,000 available to spend. What is the greatest conversion you can
achieve with the available money and reactors?
(b) How would your answer to (a) change if you have S$30,000 available to spend?

2. An elemental isomerization A ® B is being carried out in a real reactor with the following
RTD function

At 350 K, the conversion predicted by the tanks-in-series model was 60%.

(a) How many tanks in-series have been used to model this reactor?
(b) What will be the conversion, if the reaction is carried out isothermally at 370 k. From the
literature, we know the activation energy for this reaction is 25 kcal/mol. We also assume
the temperature will not affect the RTD pattern of the reactor.

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3. A second-order reaction is to be carried out in a real reactor which gives the following outlet
concentration for a step input.
For 0 £ t < 10 min then CT = 10(1-e- 0.1t )
For t ³ 10 min then CT = 5 + 10(1-e- 0.1t )
(a) What model do you propose and what are your model parameters, a and b?
(b) What conversion can be expected in the real reactor?
(c) How would your model change and conversion change if your outlet tracer
concentration was
For 0 £ t £ 10 min then CT = 0
For t ³ 10 min then CT = 5 + 10(1-e- 0.2(t -10) )
v0 = 1 dm 3 /min , k = 0.1 dm 3 /mol × min , C A0 = 1.25 mol/dm 3