NONINTRUSIVE FAST-RESPONSE CONCENTRATION MEASUREMENT DEVICE FOR CHEMICAL REACTORS

A device is proposed by which the residence time distribution in a tub ular chemical reactor can be measured with a response time on the orde r of hundreds of microseconds. This device works on the principle of i nfrared laser absorption spectroscopy. Because the light beam passes d irectly through the reactor cross section, there is no measurement cel l thus making the technique nonintrusive. The device has been successf ully tested with a tubular reactor with a gaseous flow at average resi dence times ranging from 0.04 to 0.7 s. The level of micromixing in th e reactor can also be estimated due to the very fast response of the i nstrument. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.