Department of Chemical Engineering, Unit Catalogue 2007/08 |
CE10080 Chemical engineering principles |
| Credits: 6 |
| Level: Certificate |
| Semester: 1 |
| Assessment: CW 30%, EX 70% |
| Requisites: |
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Aims: To introduce the principles and practices of material and energy balancing (both steady state and unsteady state) for non-reacting and reacting systems in chemical and biochemical engineering. To introduce the principles of reaction engineering and their application to chemical and biological reactor design.
Learning Outcomes: After successfully completing this unit students should be able to: * Formulate and solve manually material and energy balances for process systems that may include multi-component streams, phase changes, simple reactions, recycles, purges, bypasses and mixing. *Perform simultaneous material and energy balances on adiabatic, non-adiabatic and isothermal reactors, including equilibrium-controlled reactions. *Calculate reaction orders, rate constants and half-lives for simple reaction mechanisms. Apply the Arrhenius equation to calculate activation energies. *Distinguish between various reactor types and explain their applications in chemical and biochemical processes. Skills: Analysis and problem solving (taught/facilitated and assessed). Content: * Introduction to process systems. * Units and dimensions; concept of dimensionless numbers. * Flow rate and concentration (mass, molar, partial pressure). * Law of conservation of mass. * Material balances on non-reacting systems, steady and unsteady state (continuous, batch, semi-batch, and batch-fed). * Synthesis of the process flowsheet; the process flow diagram. * Material balances on reacting systems (stoichiometry, elemental balances, conversion, yield, recycle, purge, by-pass and mixing). * Forms of energy and their interchangeability. * Sensible and latent heats; mixing and solution; multicomponent systems. * First and second laws of thermodynamics; the general energy equation for closed and open (flow) systems. * Heats of formation, reaction and combustion; standard and non-standard conditions. * Energy balances on single and multiphase systems with and without reaction (adiabatic, non-adiabatic and isothermal systems). * Incomplete conversion, excess reactants, inerts. * Material and energy balances in combustion. * Elementary and non-elementary reactions. * Order of reaction and analysis of rate data. * Homogeneous and heterogeneous reactions. * Kinetic rate expressions; rate and equilibrium constants; Arrhenius equation and activation energy; conversion and yield. * Reactor types and basic design equations. |