ChE 126 Reference: Fundamentals of Chemical Reaction Engineering, Davis and Davis. California Institute of Technology Library. a.

Energy balance: For a spherical pellet, the energy balance (as adapted from Bird, Stewart and Lightfoot, p. 275 of first edition) of a spherical shell of thickness r Thermal energy in at r Thermal energy out at Thermal energy produced From

The terms above are summed and divided by

Dividing by

and simplifying the limit as r approaches 0 into the derivative,

Note that q is actually Fouriers law of thermal conductivity,

Where is the effective thermal conductivity of the pellet. and T = Ts at r = R. Concentration profile

is given as 0 at r = 0

The concentration profile for a spherical particle for a first order reaction is given by the following equation:

The concentration profile and temperature profile were evaluated using Maple. See next page for the code and the final equations.

Another boundary condition is that at r =0, the derivative of T(r) is 0. However, a value of 0 at the denominator is not allowed. In order for equation 9 to be valid, _C2 should also be equal to Ts. The equation for T(r) simplifies to: Simplifying this equation we arrive at

Given the boundary condition that at Tmax, Ca = 0

b. Representative values of the parameters and graph for the temperature and concentration profile when the reaction is carried out adiabatically. When the reaction is carried out adiabatically, no heat is transferred to the surroundings and all energy generated (or consumed) by the reaction goes to heat (or cool) the pellet. The temperature difference between the surface and the pellet interior is directly related to the concentration difference. The relation for concentration and temperature is given in equation 5 of the Maple derivations. Thus, the equations previously derived are suitable for use in an adiabatic system. Setting the parameters for our system as: Parameter Value R 0.01 meters Sa 530 square meters per gram k1 4.42 * 10e-10 cubic meters/square meters-s De 10e-1 cm^2/s 2800 kg/cubic meter or 2.8*10e6 g/cubic meter Cs (surface concentration) 4e-5 mol/cm^3 Hreaction +/- 80000 Joules/mol kt (thermal conductivity) 1.6e-3 J/(cm-sec-C) Ts 200 degrees Celsius

*Data obtained from An Introduction to Chemical Engineering Kinetics & Reactor Design The equation for the concentration profile is given as

The temperature profile, on the other hand, can be taken from the pinkhighlighted equation above.

The temperature profile is dependent on whether the reaction is exothermic or endothermic.

In both cases, the temperature of the pellet surface was assumed to be 200 degrees Celsius.