ABSTRACT
An isothermal flow reactor has constant temperature both with respect to time as well as with respect to position within the reactor. These ideal conditions may be approximated but not rigorously met in a real flow reactor. In Ideal plug flow reactor (PFR), also known as piston flow reactor, every fluid element entering the reactor spends the same amount of time inside the reactor. This is only possible when every fluid element is propelled by a unidirectional uniform flow field in parallel trajectories. Considering the complexity of plant layout required for combining PFRs, it is better to have a single large PFR rather than several small PFRs joined either in series or in parallel. In Ideal backmix flow reactor, the fluid inside the reactor is ideally mixed to the extent that at every point inside the reactor, the concentration of each chemical species is the same.
