CH3008D

CHEMICAL REACTION ENGINEERING II

Lecture – 2
RTD
 Non-Ideal Reactors
• Ideal reactors
1. The perfectly mixed batch
2. The plug-flow tubular
3. The perfectly mixed continuous tank
• The reactor analyst must learn to diagnose and handle chemical reactors whose
performance deviates from the ideal.
• The two major uses of the residence time distribution to characterize nonideal
reactors are
1. To diagnose problems of reactors in operation.
2. To predict conversion or effluent concentrations in existing/available reactors when a new
chemical reaction is used in the reactor.

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Examples of Non-Ideal Behaviors in Reactors

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Examples of Non-Ideal Behaviors in Reactors

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 Concepts used to describe nonideal reactors
1. The distribution of residence times in the system (RTD)
2. The quality of mixing
3. The model used to describe the system
• All three of these concepts are considered when describing deviations from the mixing
patterns assumed in ideal reactors.
• The three concepts can be regarded as characteristics of the mixing in nonideal reactors.
• One way to order our thinking on nonideal reactors is to consider modeling the flow patterns
in our reactors as either ideal CSTRs or PFRs as a first approximation.
• In real reactors, however, nonideal flow patterns exist, resulting in ineffective contacting and
lower conversions than in the case of ideal reactors.
• We must have a method of accounting for this nonideality.

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 Residence Time Distribution (RTD) Function
• The idea of using the distribution of residence times in the analysis of chemical reactor performance was
apparently first proposed by MacMullin and Weber.
• However, the concept did not appear to be used extensively until the early 1950s, when Prof. P. V.
Danckwerts gave organizational structure to the subject of RTD by defining most of the distributions of
interest.
• In an ideal plug-flow reactor, all the atoms of material leaving the reactor have been inside it for exactly the
same amount of time.
• Similarly, in an ideal batch reactor, all the atoms of materials within the reactor have been inside the BR for
an identical length of time.
• The time the atoms have spent in the reactor is called the residence time of the atoms in the reactor.
• Ideal CSTR
– The feed introduced into a CSTR at any given time becomes completely mixed with the material already in the reactor.
– In other words, some of the atoms entering the CSTR leave it almost immediately because material is being continuously
withdrawn from the reactor; other atoms remain in the reactor almost forever because all the material recirculates
within the reactor and is virtually never removed from the reactor at one time.
– Many of the atoms, of course, leave the reactor after spending a period of time somewhere in the vicinity of the mean
residence time. 6
 Residence Time Distribution (RTD) Function
• In any reactor, the distribution of residence times of the flowing fluid can significantly affect its
performance in terms of conversion and product distribution.
• The residence time distribution (RTD) of a reactor is a characteristic of the mixing that occurs
in the chemical reactor.
• There is no axial mixing in a plug-flow reactor, and this omission is reflected in the RTD.
• The CSTR is thoroughly mixed and possesses a far different kind of RTD than the plug-flow
reactor.
• The RTD exhibited by a given reactor yields distinctive clues to the type of mixing occurring
within it and is one of the most informative characterizations of the reactor.

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 Measurement of the RTD
• The RTD is determined experimentally by injecting an inert chemical, molecule, or atom,
called a tracer, into the reactor at some time 𝑡 = 0 and then measuring the tracer
concentration, C, in the effluent stream as a function of time.
• Tracer properties
– A nonreactive species
– Easily detectable
– It should have physical properties similar to those of the reacting mixture
– It should be completely soluble in the mixture
– It should not adsorb on the walls or other surfaces in the reactor.
• Colored and radioactive materials along with inert gases are the most common types of
tracers.
• The two most used methods of injection are pulse input and step input.

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 Pulse Input Experiment
• In a pulse input, an amount of tracer 𝑁0 is suddenly injected in one shot into the feed stream
entering the reactor in as short a time as is humanly possible.
• The outlet concentration is then measured as a function of time.
• The effluent of the tracer concentration versus time curve is referred to as the C-curve in RTD
analysis.
• We shall first analyze the injection of a tracer pulse for a single-input and single-output system
in which only flow (i.e., no dispersion) carries the tracer material across system boundaries.
• Here, we choose an increment of time ∆𝑡 sufficiently small that the concentration of tracer,
𝐶(𝑡), exiting between time 𝑡 and time (𝑡 + ∆𝑡) is essentially the same.
• The amount of tracer material, Δ𝑁 leaving the reactor between time 𝑡 and (𝑡 + ∆𝑡) is then,
Δ𝑁 = 𝐶 𝑡 𝑣Δt, where, 𝑣 is the effluent volumetric flow rate.
• In other words, Δ𝑁 is the amount of material exiting the reactor that has spent an amount of
time between 𝑡 and (𝑡 + ∆𝑡) in the reactor.
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 Pulse Input Experiment
• If we now divide by the total amount of material that was injected into the reactor, 𝑁0 , we
obtain
Δ𝑁 𝑣𝐶 𝑡
= Δ𝑡
𝑁0 𝑁0
which represents the fraction of material that has a residence time in the reactor between time 𝑡 and (𝑡 + ∆𝑡)
• For pulse injection we define
𝑣𝐶 𝑡 Δ𝑁
𝐸(𝑡) = so that = 𝐸(𝑡)Δ𝑡
𝑁0 𝑁0

• The quantity 𝐸(𝑡) is called the residence time distribution function.

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Pulse Input Experiment

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 Finding RTD function, E(t) from C(t)
• If 𝑁0 is not known directly, it can be obtained from the outlet concentration measurements by
summing up all the amounts of materials, Δ𝑁, between time equal to zero and infinity.
• 𝑑𝑁 = 𝑣𝐶 𝑡 𝑑𝑡
∞
• 𝑁0 = ‫׬‬0 𝑣𝐶 𝑡 𝑑𝑡
𝑣𝐶 𝑡 𝑣𝐶 𝑡 𝑣𝐶 𝑡 𝐶 𝑡
• 𝐸 𝑡 = = ∞ = ∞ = ∞
𝑁0 ‫׬‬0 𝑣𝐶 𝑡 𝑑𝑡 𝑣 ‫׬‬0 𝐶 𝑡 𝑑𝑡 ‫׬‬0 𝐶 𝑡 𝑑𝑡
• The E-curve is just the C-curve divided by the area under the C-curve.

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