Periodic Operation with Modulation of Inlet Concentration and Flow Rate Part II: Adiabatic Continuous Stirred-Tank Reactor

Abstract

The nonlinear frequency response (NFR) method, which is an analytical, fast, and easy method for evaluating the performance of forced periodically operated chemical reactors, was used to investigate possible improvements to a nonisothermal continuous stirred-tank reactor (CSTR) when inlet concentration and/or flow rate are periodically modulated. The product yield was used for evaluating the performance improvements. Part I of this paper considered the general nonisothermal case. In this part, the results are applied to an adiabatic CSTR. A laboratory-scale adiabatic CSTR was analyzed by applying kinetic parameters for the hydrolysis of acetic anhydride. It is shown that improvement can be obtained for simultaneous modulation of the two inputs with appropriately chosen forcing parameters.