Chapter 15, Problem 15.13P

Falsified Kinetics. The irreversible gas-phase dimerization

$\text{2B}\stackrel{}{\to }{\text{A}}_{\text{2}}$

is carried out at 8.2 atm in a stirred contained-solids reactor to which only pure A is fed. There are 40 g of catalyst in each of the four spinning baskets. The following runs were carried out at 227°C:

The following experiment was carried out at 237°C:

$F_{T0}=\text{9 g mol/min}{y}_{\text{A}}=0.097$

1. (a) What are the apparent reaction order and the apparent activation energy?
2. (b) Determine the true reaction order, specific reaction rate, and activation energy.
3. (c) Calculate the Thiele modulus and effectiveness factor.
4. (d) What pellet diameter should be used to make the catalyst more effective?
5. (e) Calculate the rate of reaction on a rotating disk made of the catalytic material when the gas-phase reactant concentration is 0.01 g mol/L and the temperature is 227°C. The disk is flat, nonporous, and 5 cm in diameter.

Additional information:

Effective diffusivity: 0.23 cm²/s Radius of catalyst pellets: 1 cm

Surface area of porous catalyst: 49 m²/g-cat Color of pellets: blushing peach

Density of catalyst pellets: 2.3 g/cm³