Industrial Reaction Engineering

Chemistry and Biology

About this course

A major part of chemical reactions in production processes and in gas cleaning processes takes place in multi-phase reactors, e.g. Production of Pharmaceuticals, calcination of lime in the production of calcium hydroxide, production of cement, combustion of solid and liquid fuels in the production of power and heat, catalytic and non-catalytic cleaning of flue gas and catalytic production of important products in different reactors including two or more phases. The examples are homogeneous or heterogeneous catalysed, gas-solid, gas-liquid, liquid-solid and gas-liquid-solid reactions that take place in a number of different reactor types (batch fixed bed, moving bed, spray absorbers, packed towers, membrane reactors, fluidized bed reactors, entrained flow reactors etc.). The theory covering the different types of reactions and a number of the reactors is expounded together with examples. During the semester the students cooperate in teams solving practical oriented reactor design problems.

Expected learning outcomes

• A student who has met the objectives of the course will be able to:

• Characterize solid particulates with respect to size; size distribution; shape; porosity; texture etc.

• Calculate effective diffusion coefficients in simple structures

• Establish and solve mathematical models for gas-solid reactions (transport phenomena coupled to chemical reactions)

• Evaluate structure models for gas-solid reactions

• Establish and solve models for gas-liquid-solid reactions

• Explain the enhancement factor for gas-liquid reactions

• Analyse and simplify complicated reaction engineering problems in order to establish mathematical models for the main phenomena

• Evaluate calculations for reaction engineering problems in order to use the results for practical design.