ABSTRACT

The mole balance equation was developed in Chapter 3 and applied to a variety of ideal reactors. Energy changes were not considered, which led to some constraints on the systems that were analyzed. For the batch reactor case, the contents of the reactor had a uniform temperature, and this temperature did not change with time. For šow reactors, the temperature was constant with respect to both time and spatial position, and the inlet and outlet process stream temperatures were the same. With these imposed constraints, the mole balance equation, along with a rate expression, is suf„cient to determine the conversion in a reactor. In the operation of most real reactors, regardless of whether they are laboratory units, pilot-scale, or full-size reactors, these constraints on the temperature do not apply. Thus, in a batch reactor, the temperature of the reaction mixture may change with time. In a šow reactor, the temperature may change with time and position, or the feed and efšuent streams may have different temperatures. To account for these effects, reactor analysis must include the energy balance.