Design procedure for safe operations in agitated batch reactors

Abstract

An application-oriented design procedure is presented for completely mixed liquid reacting systems in batch reactors. These systems can safely be operated by neglecting the heat capacity of the vessel and attributing suitable values to three scale-independent control parameters: the initial concentration (c0); the inlet coolant temperature (Tc,i); and the Newtonian cooling time (tN). For given dimensionless values of the reaction order n, heat-transfer capacity βn, and inlet coolant temperature ϵ, the design value α* of the dimensionless adiabatic temperature rise must satisfy α > α* < αm,a. This can help avoid both runaways (α* < αc) and oversteps of the maximum allowable temperature rise (α* < αm,a). A model is derived to calculate αc and αm,a for three different reaction orders. Simulated relationships are verified with experimental results concerning the hydration of 2,3-epoxypropanol in a 0.27-L agitated batch reactor.