CHOICE OF REACTOR

Introduction
Since process design starts with the
reactor, the first decisions are those
that lead to the choice of reactor.
Good reactor performance is of
paramount importance in determining
the economic viability of the overall design
important to the environmental impact of
the process.

Introduction
Once the product specifications have
been fixed, some decisions need to
be made regarding the reaction path.
There are sometimes different paths
to the same product.
Consider the manufacture of ethanol

Example
Ethylene could be used as a raw material and reacted
with water to produce ethanol.
An alternative would be to start with methanol as a
raw material and react it with synthesis gas (a mixture
of carbon monoxide and hydrogen) to produce the
same product.
These two paths employ chemical reactor technology.
A third path could employ
a biochemical reaction (or fermentation) that
exploits the metabolic processes of microorganisms
in a biochemical reactor.
Ethanol could therefore also be manufactured by

Classification of reactors
Reactors can be broadly classified as
chemical or biochemical.
Most reactors, whether chemical or
biochemical, are catalyzed.
The strategy will be to choose the catalyst, if
one is to be used, and the ideal
characteristics and operating conditions
needed for the reaction system.

Issues in reactor design

The issues that must be addressed for reactor design include:
Reactor type
Catalyst
Size
Operating conditions (temperature and pressure)
Phase
Feed conditions (concentration and Temperature).

Once basic decisions have been made regarding these issues,

a practical reactor is selected.
However, the reactor design cannot be fixed at this stage,
since, as will be seen later, it interacts strongly with the rest of
the flowsheet.

Reaction Path
To manufacture a certain product, there are
often a number of alternative reaction paths
to that product.
Reaction paths that use the cheapest raw
materials and produce the smallest
quantities of byproducts are to be preferred.
However, there are many other factors to be
considered in the choice of reaction path.

Choice of Reaction Path

Uncertainties regarding future prices of raw
materials and byproducts.
Safety and energy consumption.
Environmentally benign.
The lack of suitable catalysts is the most
common reason preventing the exploitation
of novel reaction paths.

Example: Manufacture vinyl chloride

There are at least three reaction
paths that can be readily exploited.

Molar masses and values of

materials

Question?
Oxygen is considered to be free at
this stage, coming from the
atmosphere.
Which reaction path makes most
sense on the basis of raw material
costs, product and byproduct values?

Solution
Decisions can be made on the basis of the
economic potential of the process.
EP = (value of products) (raw materials
costs)
Path 1
EP = (62 0.46) (26 1.0 + 36 0.39)
= 11.52 $ kmol1 vinyl chloride product

Solution
Path 2
EP = (62 0.46 + 36 0.39) (28 0.58 + 71
0.23)
= 9.99 $ kmol1 vinyl chloride product
This assumes the sale of the byproduct HCl. If it
cannot be sold, then:
EP = (62 0.46) (28 0.58 + 71 0.23)
= 4.05 $ kmol1vinyl chloride product
Path 3
EP = (62 0.46) (28 0.58 + 36 0.39)
= 1.76 $ kmol1vinyl chloride product

Solution
Paths 1 and 3 are clearly not viable.
Only Path 2 shows a positive economic
potential when the byproduct HCl can be sold.
In practice, this might be quite difficult, since
the market for HCl tends to be limited.
In general, projects should not be justified on
the basis of the byproduct value.

Types of Reaction Systems

Single reactions.
Most reaction systems involve multiple reactions.
In practice, the secondary reactions can
sometimes be neglected, leaving a single
primary reaction to consider.
Single reactions are of the type:
FEED PRODUCT

or
FEED PRODUCT + BYPRODUCT

or
FEED1 + FEED2 PRODUCT

Single Reactions
An example of this type of reaction that does not
produce a byproduct is isomerization.
ie. the reaction of a feed to a product with the
same chemical formula but a different molecular
structure.
For example, allyl alcohol can be produced from
propylene oxide:

Multiple reactions in parallel

producing byproducts
FEED PRODUCT
FEED BYPRODUCT
or
FEED PRODUCT + BYPRODUCT1
FEED BYPRODUCT2 +
BYPRODUCT3
or
FEED1 + FEED2 PRODUCT
FEED1 + FEED2 BYPRODUCT

Example: Production of Ethylene

Oxide

Multiple reactions might not only lead to a loss of

materials and useful product but might also lead to
byproducts being deposited on, or poisoning
catalysts

Multiple reactions in series

producing byproducts
FEED PRODUCT
PRODUCT BYPRODUCT
or
FEED PRODUCT + BYPRODUCT1
PRODUCT BYPRODUCT2 +
BYPRODUCT3
or
FEED1 + FEED2 PRODUCT
PRODUCT BYPRODUCT1 +
BYPRODUCT2

Example: Production of
formaldehyde

Mixed parallel and series reactions

producing byproducts
FEED PRODUCT
FEED BYPRODUCT
PRODUCT BYPRODUCT
or
FEED PRODUCT
FEED BYPRODUCT1
PRODUCT BYPRODUCT2
or
FEED1 + FEED2 PRODUCT
FEED1 + FEED2 BYPRODUCT1
PRODUCT BYPRODUCT2 + BYPRODUCT3

Polymerization reactions
This involves three steps
Initiation
Propagation
Termination

Polymerization techniques
Suspension polymerization
Emulsion polymerization etc.,

Biochemical Reactions
Biochemical reactions, often referred
to as fermentations, can be divided
into two broad types.
FEED + microorganisms
PRODUCT + [More
microorganisms]
FEED + enzyme PRODUCT