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STUDY GUIDE · GKU 6

Chemical reaction engineering study guide (Chemical Engineering)

The reactor is where a chemical plant makes its money, and its size is set by one question: how fast does the reaction go at the conditions inside it? The first part answers that question. It defines rate, conversion and order, builds stoichiometric tables for liquid and gas reactions, explains where a rate law and its rate constant come from (elementary steps, mechanisms and the Arrhenius equation), and treats multiple reactions, where selectivity and yield matter as much as conversion. It closes with the families of reactions: forward and reverse, homogeneous and heterogeneous, series, parallel and biological. The second part turns rates into equipment: the ideal reactors (batch, semibatch, CSTR, PFR and packed bed), their design equations and the Levenspiel plot, reactors in series, how to extract kinetics from laboratory data, the energy balance for non-isothermal operation, and catalysis, from the seven steps on a porous pellet to the catalyst weight of a packed bed.

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Structured by the official ETEC subject standard for this topic: every listed topic and learning outcome, with formulas, figures and worked examples. The full sections are available to members in the app.

SKU 6.1 · Rate laws and kinetics

  1. Reaction rate, conversion and order

    What a reaction rate is, how the rates of different species are related, what conversion and reaction order mean, and how the order shapes the concentration–time curve.

  2. Stoichiometry, gas-phase reactions and reversible reactions

    Writing every concentration in terms of conversion with a stoichiometric table, the volume-change factor for gas reactions, and rate laws and equilibrium conversion for reversible reactions.

  3. Reaction steps, rate laws and the rate constant

    Elementary steps and mechanisms, the pseudo-steady-state approximation that turns a mechanism into a rate law, and the Arrhenius temperature dependence of the rate constant.

  4. Multiple reactions: selectivity and yield

    Parallel and series reactions, the definitions of selectivity and yield, and how concentration, temperature and reactor choice favour the desired product.

  5. Types of reactions

    The ways reactions are classified — by phase, reversibility, mechanism, network and catalyst — and the special form of biological (enzyme and microbial) kinetics.

SKU 6.2 · Reactor types and design

  1. Ideal reactor types

    Batch, semibatch, continuous stirred tank, plug flow and packed bed reactors: how each one mixes, what it is used for, and which mole balance describes it.

  2. Design equations, Levenspiel plots and reactors in series

    The design equations of the ideal reactors in terms of conversion, sizing from a Levenspiel plot, and how CSTRs and PFRs combine in series.

  3. Determining kinetics from experimental data

    How to find a rate law from laboratory measurements: the integral, differential, half-life and initial-rate methods, and the method of excess.

  4. Energy balance and non-isothermal reactors

    Coupling the energy balance to the mole balance: the adiabatic temperature–conversion line, heat removal in an isothermal reactor, and the equilibrium limit of exothermic reversible reactions.

  5. Catalysts and catalytic reaction steps

    What a catalyst does and what it does not, the properties of porous and non-porous catalysts, the seven steps of a heterogeneous catalytic reaction, Langmuir–Hinshelwood rate laws and the effectiveness factor.

  6. Catalytic packed-bed reactors: catalyst weight

    Sizing an isothermal packed bed by catalyst weight, converting to bed volume, accounting for gas expansion and pellet effectiveness, and where pressure drop enters.

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