Calibration of a discontinuous reaction calorimeter by a set of specific transient experiments

Abstract

Batch heat flow calorimeters are frequently used to estimate thermal effects associated with chemical reactions. Batch chemical processes are also industrially relevant. In this paper, it is shown that classical energy balances obtained for a jacketted batch reactor (respectively the bulk phase, the walls and the jacket content) can be simplified to describe specific transient experiments. Each of these experiments allows the estimation of only one thermal parameter of the model, i.e. the heat transfer coefficients from both sides of the reactor inner wall, h j and h rthe heat loss coefficient to the environment, K L. The method used to estimate these coefficients is based on a classical least-squares minimization technique between the expected response of the models and the experimental one. This set of specific transient experiments constitutes the proposed calibration method which is applied to a calorimeter which was built in our laboratory. Statistical properties are given for each of the measured heat exchange coefficients.