Determining Reaction Rate and Order of Reaction

An example of Using the Excel Solver function by:

Vanadium Sigma

Determining Reaction Rate

• Common chemical engineering task

• Work performed in a batch reactor

• Samples drawn off at set time points

• Samples analyzed for concentration data

• General form: ra = kCa(alpha)

Example: Background

• You are an engineer making product P from a reaction:A P

• You know the reaction is not first order

• Your intern has collected data from a batch reaction

Time (s) Ca (mM)

0 50

50 38

100 30.6

150 25.6

200 22.2

250 19.5

300 17.4

Example: Setup

Example: Solver

Example: Solver

Example: Solution

Summary

• Determining reaction rate is important to model chemical reactions

• Excel solver can be used to accurately model the reaction rate for a simple reaction engineering problem

• The sum of squared residuals between experimental and model data was minimized