Page 28 - Elements of Chemical Reaction Engineering Ebook

Preface xxix
H. What’s New

The main thrust of the new edition is to enable the student to solve Digital
Age reaction engineering problems. Consequently the‘ content, example prob-
lems, and homework problems focus on achieving this goal. These problemis
provide the students an opportunity to practice their critical and creative think-
ing slulls by “playing with” the problems through parameter variations. Conse-
quently, some of the text material, e.g., control of chemical reactors and safety,
was added because it provides opportunities to formulate and solve problems.
For example, in the Case Study on safety, the student can use the CD-ROM to
carry out a post-mortem on the nitroanaline explosion in Example 9-2 to find
out what would have happened if the cooling had failed for 5 minutes instead
of 10 mirtutes. Significant effort has been devoted to developing example and
homework problems that foster critical and creative thinking.
The use of mole balances in terms of concentrations and flow rates rather
than conversions is introduced early in the text so they can be easily applied to
membrane reactors and multiple reactions. The 3rd edition contains more
industrial chemistry with real reactors and real reactions and extends the wide
range of applications to which chemical reaction engineering principles can be
applied (Le., cobra bites, drug medication, ecological engineering). New mate:-
rial includes spherical reactors, recycle reactors, trickle bed reactors, fluidized
bed reactors, regression of rate data, etching of semiconductors, multiple reac-
tions in RTD models, the application of process control to CSTRs, safety, coll-
lision theory, transition state theory, and an example using computational
chemistry to calculate an activation energy. The material that has been greatly
expanded includes polymerization, heat effects in batch reactors and in multiL-
ple reactions, catalysts and catalytic reactions, experimental design, and reactor
staging. The living example problems on the CD-ROM are in both POLY-
MATH arid MATLAB.
A large number of enrichment resources are provided on the CD-ROM
that can help the student over difficult spots. However, if there is a time con-
straint, or the reader’s computer breaks down, the reader need only read the
text and proceed along the pathway of the boxes shown in Figures P-3 and P-4.

I. Ackriowledgrnents

Many of the probleims at the end of the various chapters were selected from the
California Board of Registration for Civil and Professional Engineers-Chem-
ical Engineering Examinations (PECEE) in past years. The permission for use
of these problems, which, incidentally, may be obtained from the Documents
Section, California Board of Registration for Civil and Professional Engineers--
Chemical Engineering, 1004 6th Street, Sacramento, CA 95814, is gratefully
acknowledged. (Note: These problems have been copyrighted by the Californi,a
Board of Registration and may not be reproduced without their permission.)

Fogler, H. S., “Teaching Critical Thinking, Creative Thinking, and Problem Solving in
the Digital Age” (Phillips Lecture, Oklahoma State University Press, April 25, 1997).