Chemical reaction engineering and process safety
Written exam
The concept “chemical reaction engineering” represents the approach required by the engineer to implement the transformation of selected reagents into desired products. As a result, the reactor combines the chemist’s reaction mechanisms, which define the order of the steps necessary to obtain the desired products, with the transfer mechanisms (material, heat and quantity of movement) in order to allow the reaction mechanisms to be established with controlled kinetics, precise selectivity and defined reproducibility. The optimal implementation of chemical transformation requires knowing how to choose the most suitable reactor (batch reactors, continuous stirred tank reactor, plug flow reactor, continuous, discontinuous operation), and to define the operating conditions. First we will present the specificities of the different ideal reactors and their characteristic equations allowing to access the performances of the process (conversion, selectivity). Then we will approach situations closer to reality by taking into account the thermicity of the reactions by carrying out heat balances on these same reactors.
Finally, students will have to analyse the safety of chemical processes by using different process-specific risk analysis methods (HAZOP, What-if, Fault trees, event trees…).
These courses will be complemented by presentations by industrialists illustrating the issues of chemical process development in batch reactors (Sanofi), process instrumentation (Total) and process safety and thermal runaway issues (Solvay, INERIS).
At the end of the course, students must be able to :
Be able to understand the specificities of large industrial reactors
Be able to write a material balance and a heat balance in the case of ideal reactors
Be able to dimension a reactor and calculate its performance
Be able to ensure the operational safety of a process by using risk analysis methods
