FIRST APPROXIMATION- ADIABATIC PLUG FLOW

Mass and energy balance

These equations presented above, i.e. Eqn (5) and (11), may however still seem difficult to solve, so let us start from the beginning with a simple case. As a first attempt, let us assume fully developed turbulent flow in the reactor, i.e. plug flow, and an adiabatic system. These assumptions will allow you to neglect all radial effects, meaning that there will be no mass or temperature gradients in the radial direction.

The problem is thereby transformed into a one dimensional problem and Eqn (5) and (11) therefore takes the forms:

                                               (12)

                             (13)

Boundary conditions

To each of these equations we need to define one boundary condition and one initial value. For both the mass and energy balance, we know the temperature and the concentration at the inlet boundary and these values are also the initial values.

 The boundary conditions can be expressed as:                      

                         Mass/Mole condition       Energy condition

at z = 0