Series Reactions in a Batch Reactor
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Two first-order, liquid-phase reactions 
take place in an isothermal batch reactor; the reactor initially contains only 
at a concentration of 
. The activation energy 
of the second reaction (155 kJ/mol) is higher than the activation energy 
of the first reaction (145 kJ/mol). Vary the temperature of the reaction with a slider. Use buttons 
, 
, 
) to display the concentration of 
, 
, or 
as a function of time. Select "
, 
, and 
" to display all three concentrations versus time. Select "selectivity 
)" to plot 
versus time. The selectivity changes with temperature because the reactions have different activation energies. The time scale in the plots changes between 465 K and 466 K.
Contributed by: Rachael L. Baumann (June 2013)
Additional contributions by: John L. Falconer and Nick Bongiardina
(University of Colorado Boulder, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering)
Open content licensed under CC BY-NC-SA
Snapshots
Details
Consider the first-order reactions 
. The reactor is isothermal, and the temperature of the reactor is set with a slider. As the temperature changes, the selectivity 
for the desired product 
changes.
Mole balances are done:
,
,
,
,
,
where 
, 
, and 
are the concentrations of 
, 
, and 
(
), 
is time (h), 
and 
are the rate constants for the first and second reactions (1/h), 
and 
are pre-exponential factors (1/h), 
and 
are activation energies (kJ/mol) where 
, 
is the ideal gas constant (kJ/[mol K]), and 
is temperature (K) of the reaction.
The screencast video at [2] shows how to use this Demonstration.
References
[1] H. Scott Fogler, Essentials of Chemical Reaction Engineering, Boston: Pearson Education, 2011 pp. 298–302.
[2] Series Reactions in a Batch Reactor. www.colorado.edu/learncheme/kinetics/SeriesReactionsBatchReactor.html.
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