A NEW EQUATION FOR CORRELATING A PIPE-FLOW REACTOR WITH A CASCADE OF MIXED REACTORS

For many reactions, a pipe flow reactor and a cascade of ideally mixed reactors yield similar results, if we use a proper correlation betwee n the Bodenstein number of the pipe flow reactor and the number of sta ges for the cascade. However, existing equations for this correlation, which are derived from residence time considerations, apply only for Bodenstein numbers greater than 7 or stage numbers greater than 6. In this paper a new equation is developed by comparing the governing equa tions for the reaction in both systems. It is shown that this correlat ion yields good agreement of the output concentrations for all stage n umbers down to a single stage, respectively, zero Bodenstein number, e ven for a successive reaction. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd