• 096116 - CHEMICAL REACTION ENGINEERING

The main objective is to provide a rigorous and integrative treatment of a variety of subjects in chemical reactor design, which are relevant to and compatible with the background of most of the first-year M.Sc. Chemical Engineering students at Politecnico di Milano:

1. complex chemical reaction mechanisms and kinetics
2. principles of reactor design and analysis
3. transport effects in multiphase reactive systems
4. advanced reactor design through numerical modeling

On completion of the course, the student should be able to design/analyze a variety of complex reacting systems in both traditional and non-traditional areas of Chemical Engineering.

Lectures will allow students to:

• design/analyze a variety of complex reacting systems in both traditional and non-traditional areas of Chemical Engineering
• use appropriate reactor models to select desired reactor type and size for specified production rate and selectivity
• quantify the effect of operating variables in various reactor types on product quality and purity and energy efficiency
• design and interpret rate experiments, assess the effect of transport phenomena on observed rates, and determine the rate of reaction as a function of composition and temperature
• assess the potential hazards of various reactor types in case of exothermic reactions
• write and simplify appropriately the overall rate and balance equations for multiphase reactions
• design reactors for heterogeneous reactions and optimise operating conditions
• use RTD methods to diagnose nonideal flows in reactors and calculate conversions in non-ideal reactors
• demonstrate the ability to use the general reaction engineering principles in different application

Practical sessions will allow students to:

• apply the theoretical aspects and the numerical techniques presented during the lessons

Introduction

This course combines the study of chemical kinetics with the reactors in which they take place. The goal of this course is to allow students to model various reactor configurations, design reactors for a given reaction system, and to extract reaction kinetic and mechanism information based on system behavior. The course introduces an algorithmic approach to solve chemical reaction engineering problems to allow the students versatility in addressing a wide range of configurations and applications. Specific skills that are developed during the course include:

• analytical derivation of various design models;
• reactor sizing and design;
• extraction and analysis of reaction kinetics;
• analysis of complex reaction systems (including multiple reactions, heat effects);
• use of computational tools for analyzing complex reaction systems.

Details

1. Introduction: Course organization and syllabus, structure and introduction, topical outline and pre-assessment; presentation of learning objectives; introduction to methods of Chemical Reaction Engineering
2. Chemical Kinetics: effects of temperature and Arrhenius plot; rate expressions and rate equations for single- and multiple-reaction systems; non-unity stoichiometric coefficients; rate data analysis and determination of kinetic parameters; variable density systems; generalized stoichiometric coefficients, extents of reaction, and generalized reaction rates; autocatalytic reactions
3. Ideal reactors: Classification and characteristics of ideal flow reactors; simple reaction characteristics, calculation, and optimization; variable temperature and variable molar reaction, adiabatic temperature rise and expansion factor; complex response characteristics, complex reaction rate, selectivity, and yield calculations.
4. Non-ideal reactors: Residence Time Distribution (RTD) function, measurement of RTD and its properties; reactor diagnostics and troubleshooting. Modeling non-ideal reactors: zero-, one- and two-parameter models. 
5. Gas-solid catalytic reactors: Classification and characteristics of gas-solid catalytic reactor; adiabatic radial flow reactor; design and optimization of multi-stage gas-solid catalytic reactor; the heat transfer and thermal stability of particles and the reactor.
6. Gas-liquid reaction and reactors: equilibrium of gas-liquid phase and chemical reactions; kinetics of gas-liquid reactions; design and selection of gas-liquid reactors.
7. Bioreactors: enzyme kinetics, inhibition and regulation; kinetics of microbial growth, models and simulations; batch and continuous cultures; transport phenomena in bioreactions and bioreactors; fermenter design and scaleup.
8. Other reaction processes and reactors: fluidized bed reactors.

Practical sessions

Most of practical sessions will focus on the numerical modeling of chemical reactors via Matlab® (laptop required).

The prerequisite courses include advanced mathematics, principles of chemical engineering, chemical engineering thermodynamics, principles of transport phenomena, and basic knowledge of computer programming (the Matlab® platform is adopted in the practical sessions). Upon completion of the course, students should be able to master the basic theories of the reaction process and reactor analysis, and understand basic reactor types, mathematical models, reactor design, and scaleup methods.

Written examination: questions on theoretical aspects and exercises on design and analysis of chemical reactors.

The written examination aims at assessing the ability of students:

• in applying the typical chemical reaction engineering problem-solving algorithms to a variety of reactor configurations and kinetic systems through both analytical and computational approaches;
• in developing critical thinking skills that allow them to challenge underlying assumptions and propose an understanding that extends beyond the proposed solution;
• in questioning the proposed solution approaches to typical chemical engineering problems and identifying the parameters that can be varied in a given configuration for performances improvement.

Oral examination is considered only in special circumstances.