Variation of Conversion with Reaction Order in a Plug Flow Reactor

Consider an irreversible liquid phase reaction, , taking place in a plug-flow reactor. The feed concentration is and the volumetric flow rate is . The reaction rate law is where you can vary the reaction order, , and the reaction rate constant is held constant (e.g., ). A differential mole balance gives: where is the volume of the plug flow reactor, is the conversion given by , and is the feed flow rate of species . This Demonstration plots the conversion, versus the volume, , for various values of the reaction order. It is found that the conversion gets lower when the reaction order is increased.