Various types of industrial reactors are used in chemical process industries to conduct reactions and produce desired chemicals. These can be Batch or Continuous process reactors.
CSTR is a steady state reactor and can be operated in a cascade or battery of units. It is relatively easy to maintain temperature control with these types of industrial reactors. Other types of reactors include CSTRs, PFRs, and GLRs. They can also have a variety of features and accessories, such as baffles, temperature probes, pH probes and valves.
Chemical Reactors Vessel
In chemical engineering, a reactor is a vessel inside which chemical reactions take place. It can range from a simple open kettle fitted with stirrers and heaters to the vast structures that are often depicted in photographs of industrial plants like kilns which can hold, at any given time, thousands of tonnes of materials. Reactors are used in the production of a wide variety of products including petroleum, chemicals, food and pharmaceuticals.
Reactors can be designed to operate as batch or continuous processes. In batch reactors, the reagents and products are typically fluids (gases or liquids). They are operated in a transient state where key process variables such as temperature and pressure vary with time. The functioning of chemical reactors can involve high temperatures and pressures, and they may contain toxic or reactive chemicals. This requires special safety features and systems to control the process and protect the environment. The design, use, and upkeep of chemical reactors require extensive expertise and training. These factors can make them expensive to operate.
In a continuous process, the reagents and products are fed continuously into the reactor in the form of a stream and converted to a desired product. The product then exits the reactor and is separated from the reagents in another processing step such as distillation. Reactions can be performed in a wide range of types of reactors including tubular flow reactors, CSTR’s, plug flow reactors, fluidized bed reactors and slurry flow reactors. The design of chemical reactors for sale involves balancing many trade-offs such as the size of the reaction vessel against reactant conversion, hot spot temperature versus heat transfer area, reagent consumption versus selectivity and many others. These trade-offs can be systematically optimized by using a multi-objective optimization algorithm which is based on solving the general mass transfer equations that describe the system.
Industrial Reactors Storing
Reactors are vessels used for storing, processing and transporting chemicals in a variety of industries. These tanks can range in size from small laboratory units to large industrial plants that may produce lime from limestone or phenol from benzene. Typically, a chemical reactor will have a body or tank with some type of agitation system and a heating or cooling system to control the temperature and speed of reaction. Depending on the type of process, these industrial tanks can be batch or continuous.
A common choice for continuous process reactions is a tubular or plug flow reactor (figure 1). These industrial tanks have a fixed volume and a constant feed rate of reactants. This makes it easy to accurately control residence time in the vessel. In addition, the product produced tends to be of a higher quality than in batch operations. SMR development is being driven by the desire to lower electricity costs for remote sites, particularly those not served by large grid systems. They also offer the prospect of faster construction times, due to modularity and economies of scale. They may also be designed for a higher level of inherent safety compared to large reactors.
For example, four SMRs are in operation at the co-generation plant in a remote corner of Siberia, each a graphite-moderated boiling water design. The units provide district heating and 11 MWe of net electricity each, remote from any grid system.
Another popular choice is a fluid bed reactor which is used reactors for gaseous reactions. These tanks have fine catalyst particles that sit on a distributor plate. When gaseous reactants are fed to the system, they pass over the catalyst and are converted to atomic hydrogen. This allows the hydrogen atoms to be rapidly mixed with oxygen and produces the desired product.
A manufacturer of corrosion resistant chemical and industrial reactors in various sizes and pressure ratings. These stainless steel vessels come with a variety of material weld finishes, heat transfer surface designs and baffles to provide effective mixing. They also meet requirements for ASME, API, UL and CE codes. The most common types of chemical reactors are PFRs and CSTRs. The PFR has a tubular shape that carries out the majority of the reaction. It is ideal for small scale production and is the simplest type of reactor. It has a jacket to allow utilities to heat or cool the reaction mass. It has a distribution of residence time, with some material leaving the reactor immediately while others stay for longer periods.
