81632 - Laboratory of Chemical and Biochemical Reactors M

Learning outcomes

The course will provide practical skills and knowledge of tools for the design of chemical reactors and equipment for mass transfer operations, for both industrial (chemical, pharmaceutical and food industry) environmental applications.

Course contents

Requirements/Prior knowledge

A prior knowledge and understanding of mass & energy balances, chemical kinetics and main thermodynamic elements is required to attend with profit this course. In addition, the knowledge of the mainchemical reactors (batch, PFR, CSTR) and of how mass and energy balances can be applied to these reactors is required. These elements on chemical reactors are provided by the courses REATTORISTICA E OPERAZIONI UNITARIE M (for the students of the "Ingegneria di processo" curriculum) or OPERAZIONI UNITARIE DELL'INDUSTRIA ALIMENTARE M (for the students of the "Ingegneria alimentare" curriculum) or BIOREACTORS AND DOWNSTREAM PROCESSES M (for the students of the "Sustainable technologies and biotechnologies for energy and materials" curriculum). Alternatively, the courses REATTORISTICA E OPERAZIONI UNITARIE M or OPERAZIONI UNITARIE DELL'INDUSTRIA ALIMENTARE M or BIOREACTORS AND DOWNSTREAM PROCESSES M can be attended in parallel to this course.

Fluent spoken and written English is a necessary pre-requisite: all lectures and tutorials, and all study material will be in English.

Course contents

The course, that will take place in the computer lab, will tackle the main design and rating problem relatively to the main types of chemical reactor (batch, plug flow, stirred tank), of chemical reaction (reversible, irreversible, autocatalytic, reactions in series, parallel reactions, biochemical reactions) and of thermal conditions (isotherm reactor, adiabatic reactor, reactor with an assigned thermal flux). Significant space will be given to bioreactor-based processes.

For each topic, after a short introduction that will briefly recall the main theoretical elements, the instructor will present one or more design and rating problems, that the students will solve with the aid of specific software.

Readings/Bibliography

O. Levenspiel, Chemical Reaction Engineering, Third Edition, Wiley & Sons, New York, 1999.

H.S. Fogler, Elements of Chemical Reaction Engineering, Fourth Edition, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2006.

Teaching methods

For each topic, after a short introduction that will briefly recall the main theoretical elements, the instructor will present one or more design and rating problems, that the students will solve with the aid of specific software.

The course will take place in the computer lab.

Assessment methods

In order to properly assess the achievementof the learning goals stated above, at the end of the course each student will deliver to the instructor a report on the problems tackled, the solution techniques and the results obtained.

In order to pass the exam, that consists only in an eligibility (pass / fail), students will have to show a good knowledge of the key elements of the course. In particular, for each design or rating problem proposed, a clear presentation of the solution methodology and a discussion of the results obtained is required.

Teaching tools

The design and rating problems will be solved with the aid of informatics tools, such as Matlab, TK Solver and spreadsheets.

Office hours

See the website of Dario Frascari