EQUIPARTITION OF FORCES - EXTENSION TO CHEMICAL REACTORS

The combination of non-equilibrium thermodynamics with Cauchy- Lagrang e optimization procedures has resulted in a new, general principle for process design - the Principle of Equipartition of Forces. The princi ple states that the best trade-offs between entropy production and tra nsfer area in transport processes are obtained when the thermodynamic driving forces are uniformly distributed over the transfer area. It ha s been applied so far to conduction of mass, heat and charge. In this paper the application to rate-controlled reactions will be shown, conc luding that Delta rG/T for a rate-controlled reaction should be unifor m through space and time in a reactor. Certain optimization results re ported in the literature can thus be explained and generalized. The ne w principle is easy to apply and has a predictive power for improving chemical reactors as well as interacting transport processes.