LABORATORY REPORT

REACTION ENGINEERING (EP 319)

EXPERIMENT 3: THE EFFECT OF PULSE INPUT FOR CSTR

TUTORS NAME: WAN ADEEBAH BINTI WAN MAHMOOD

NAME: S. HARRIPRASHANTH (1001438249)

UCSI UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING, TECHNOLOGY & BUILT

ENVIRONMENT

MAY AUGUST 2017

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS...........................................................................................................2
1.0 OBJECTIVE........................................................................................................................3
2.0 INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................3
3.0 MATERIALS AND APPARATUS.......................................................................................4
4.0 PROCEDURE......................................................................................................................4
5.0 RESULTS AND ANALYSIS...............................................................................................6
6.0 DISCUSSION......................................................................................................................8
7.0 SAFETY PRECAUTIONS AND LIMITATIONS OF EXPERIMENT............................10
8.0 CONCLUSION..................................................................................................................10
9.0 REFERENCES...................................................................................................................10

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1.0 OBJECTIVE

To study the effect of pulse change input to the concentration.

To study the changes in conductivity for continuously stirred tank reactor in series.
To study the change of conductivity over time for reaction between deionised water and
sodium chloride.

2.0 INTRODUCTION

In the industrial chemical plant, majority of the process involving reactor. A reactor is the key
or main item of equipment in which raw materials undergo a chemical change to form desired
product under specific condition. Reactors can be widely design and form, depending on the
properties or nature of the feed materials and the desired products. These are the essential
criteria responsible to the whole process success of the industrial operation.
The stirred tank reactor in the form of either single tank, or more often a series of
tanks, particularly suitable for liquid phase reactions and widely used in chemical industry.
The mode of operation of reactors may be batch flow or continuous flow. In a batch flow
reactor, the reactor is charge with reactant, the content is well mixed and left to react and then
the mixture will be discharged. A continuous flow reactor, the feed to reactor and the
discharge from it are continuous.
One particular type of process equipment is the continuous stirred tank reactor
(CSTR). A continuously stirred tank reactor (CSTRs) consists of a stirred tank that has a feed
stream and discharge stream. It used often to determine the system response to a change in
concentration. Frequently, several CSTRs in series are operating to improve their conversion
and performance. It is also used to determine the effect of pulse change in input concentration
on the response of a system comprising three tanks in series. This system indicates the
response of concentration versus time in plotting a graph.
In the experiment, the deionised water are filled in the CSTR in series until the
conductivity readings reach constant or near zero for all the three reactors. Then, a pulse input
of solute concentration which is sodium chloride, NaCl is introduced into the first reactors for
several minutes. After that, timer will start and the deionised water are continue pump into
the reactor until the experiment end. The conductivity of the solution inside the three reactors
was recorded in an interval of 2 minutes until the reading stable. The transient behaviour will

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be different than the step change input due to the diminishing concentration from the input
after pulsing as illustrated in figure below.

Pulse input.
Transient response of tank in
series to the pulse input.

3.0 MATERIALS AND APPARATUS

Deionised water, 0.025M of Sodium Chloride, CSTRs Reactor in series

4.0 PROCEDURE

1. The feed tank B1 was filled up with deionised water. Valve V1 and V2 were opened.

2. About 30L of 0.025M Sodium Chloride solution was prepared in feed tank B2.

3. The 3-way valve V5 position was set towards pump P1. Valve V7 was closed.
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4. Valve V6 and V13 were opened. Pump P1 was switched to initially fill up all three
reactors with deionised water. Each reactor volume was recorded.

5. The pump speed, P was regulated to obtain a flow rate of approximately 200 ml/min on
flow meter FI01. Air bubbles was making sure that not trapped in the piping, overflow
tube and conductivity probe, hence will affect the reading.

6. Stirrers 1, 2 and 3 were switched on and the speed was set to 200 rpm.

7. The deionized water was continued pumped until all the conductivity readings (QI01,
QI02 and QI03) are stable at low values.

8. These conductivity values were recorded at time, to.

9. Pump P1 was switched off. The 3-way valve V5 position was set quickly towards pump
P2. Pump P2 was switched on and the timer was started simultaneously.

10. The pump speed was regulated to maintain the flow rate at 200 ml/min on flow meter
FI01.

11. Pump P2 was ran for 5 minutes and then pump P2 was switched off. The 3-way valve V5
was set towards P1. Pump P1 was switched back and let it run till the end of experiment.

12. All conductivity values (QI01, QI02 and QI03) were recorded at suitable interval 2
minutes in an appropriate table.

13. The conductivity values were continued recorded until all readings are almost constant.

14. Pump P2 was switched off. Valves V5 was closed.

15. All liquids in each reactor were drained by opening V10 to V14.

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5.0 RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

Flow rate of deionized water from tank : 172 ml/min

Flow rate of sodium chloride from tank : 150 ml/min

Speed of stirrer M1, M2 and M3 : 200 rpm

Initial concentration of sodium chloride solution, C0 : 0.025 M

Time (min) Q1 (mS/cm) Q2 (mS/cm) Q3 (mS/cm)

0 0.08 0.09 0.07
2 0.13 0.37 0.09
4 1.04 0.55 0.15
6 0.94 0.66 0.21
8 0.8 0.72 0.28
10 0.69 0.74 0.35
12 0.6 0.74 0.40
14 0.51 0.72 0.43
16 0.45 0.69 0.50
18 0.39 0.65 0.52
20 0.33 0.60 0.54
22 0.30 0.56 0.54
24 0.26 0.52 0.54
26 0.23 0.48 0.52
28 0.24 0.43 0.51
30 0.18 0.40 0.49
32 0.17 0.36 0.46
34 0.15 0.33 0.44
36 0.14 0.30 0.41
38 0.13 0.27 0.39
40 0.12 0.25 0.36
Table 1: The conductivity readings for the three CSTRs in series (QI01, QI02 and QI03).

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 Conductivity Vs Time
1.2

1
Conductivity (mS/cm)

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40
Time ( min)

Reactor 1 Reactor 2 Reactor 3

Figure 1: Conductivity outline along the pulse change input of time.

Conductivity vs Time
2.5

2
Conductivity (mS/cm)

1.5

0.5

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
Time (min)

Reactor 1 Reactor 2 Reactor 3

Figure 2: Conductivity outline along the step change input of time.

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6.0 DISCUSSION

In this experiment, an experimental procedure to determine the effect of step change input
was carried out. Salt solution used in the experiment is sodium chloride, NaCl. The first step
in the experiment was filling the reactor tanks with deionized water. In the experiment of
CSTR in series, there are two main objectives to observe: effect of step-change input and
effect of pulse input. But in this experiment, the effect of pulse change input is being
considered.
The difference between these two methods are that step-change input means salt
solution NaCl are continuing feed into the reactor throughout the experiment and through the
time the salt solution will fill all three reactors until the first reactor and third reactor will
have an equal value of conductivity. As for the effect of pulse input, the first reactor was feed
with several minute worth of salt solution and then continuing the experiment feeding the
reactors with deionized water spreading the salt solution equally through all three reactors.
The feed is flowed through the reactors at roughly 200 mL/min and the system is running
isothermally. In the experiment, reading of the conductivity of each reactor was taken every 2
minutes.
The conductivity of the mixture increases as time passes on as more and more salt
solution is fed into the reactors as observed from the results of the experiment. The
conductivity then reached a maximum point. This is because the salt solution only pumped
for several minutes. When the deionized water continued to pump into the reactors, the
conductivity started to drop. This is because the molar conductivity of deionised water is
much smaller than the molar conductivity of sodium chloride. Therefore, the conductivity of
the solution in the reactors depended on the concentration of the salt solution.
From the graph of conductivity against time, it can be observed that the conductivity
of solution in the reactor 1 reached its maximum point first, followed by reactor 2 and reactor
3. Comparing the readings in three of the reactor, it can be observed that the conductivity of
solution in reactor 1 is highest, follow by reactor 2 and reactor 3. This is because the sodium
chloride salt solution was pumped into the reactor 1, then only the salt solution flows to
reactor 2 and reactor 3 through respective valves.
A step experiment is often easier to perform than a pulse experiment, but it tends to
smooth over some of the details that a pulse response could show. It is easy to numerically
integrate an experimental pulse response to obtain a very high-quality estimate of the step
response, but the reverse is not the case because any noise in the concentration measurement

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will be amplified by numeric differentiation. Below are some of the examples of different
type of step and pulse change input.

In the experiment done, the step change input obtained (from experiment 2) follow the trend
as shown in (D) while the pulse change input follows the trend in (F).
Overall, the experimental results and the plotted graph follow the trend of the
theoretical results which shown in Introduction part. However, by observing the graph, it can
be seen that some of the point does not fit in the perfect curve. Therefore, some of the
readings may contain error. This error may due to:
1) There are residues of NaCl solution inside the reactor (from previous experiment).
This may affect the precision of the experimental results.
2) There may be some error in preparing the salt solution. For example:
- Parallax error in making measurements (to measure the solute/solution needed).
- Wrong steps or calculation in preparing the solution samples (wrong
volume/molarity or decimal point problem).
3) Instrumental error:
- Apparatus used may contained contaminate or impurities and thus affects the

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 solution molarity.
- Stirrer stopped due to error occur and thus affect the solution not mixed well.

7.0 SAFETY PRECAUTIONS AND LIMITATIONS OF EXPERIMENT

1) All the instruments were rinsed with distilled water first before the experiment.
2) Glove was wear to avoid contact with the water sample to avoid any skin contact.
3) The conductivity kept varying when the data was about to be recorded. The conductivity
indication was not stable.
4) The mixer/stirrer speed in the reactor was not stable.
5) There are residues of NaCl solution inside the reactor (from previous experiment). This
may affect the precision of the experimental results.
6) Stirred stopped due to unknown error and thus caused the solution not to mix well.

8.0 CONCLUSION

The objectives of the experiment were achieved. The mixing of sodium chloride and
deionised water was carried out in a CSTR reactor. The effect of pulse change input to the
concentration was determined and compared to the effects of step change input. As time
increases, the conductivity of the solution increases, until it reached a point. Beyond this
point, the conductivity then decreases as time increases until the conductivity reach a constant
value.

9.0 REFERENCES

1) RM Syibli Milasi B R Muhamad Fakih (February 7, 2006)

Continuous Stirred Tank Reactor (CSTR) in Series
Retrieved on 1 July 2017 from
http://docslide.us/documents/continuous-stirred-tank-reactor-cstr-in-series.html
2) Dr. Syed Hashsham (2010)
Tracer Studies in a series system of Continuous Stirred Tank Reactors (CSTRs)
Retrieved on 1 July 2017 from
http://www.egr.msu.edu/~hashsham/courses/ene806/docs/CSTR-in-Series-2010.pdf
3) Patrick L. Brezonik (2002)
Chemical Kinetics and Process Dynamics in Aquatic Systems. Retrieved on 2 July 2017
from https://books.google.com.my/books?
id=fzOHIweIZCsC&pg=PA356&lpg=PA356&dq=pulse+change+and+step+change&source=bl&o

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