Page 14 - The engineering of chemical reactions

xiv Preface

approach also reveals the underlying beauty and unity of dealing with the engineering of
chemical reactions.
Chemical reaction engineering has acquired a reputation as a subject that has become
too theoretical and impractical. In fact, we believe that reaction engineering holds the key
in improving chemical processes and in developing new ones, and it requires the greatest
skills in both analysis and intuition. Students need to see these challenges and be equipped
to solve the next generation of challenges.

O V E R A L L O R G A N I Z A T I O N -

The book starts with a review of kinetics and the batch reactor in Chapter 2, and the
material becomes progressively more complex until Chapter 12, which describes all the
types of multiphase reactors we can think of. This is the standard, linear, boring progression
followed in essentially all textbooks.
In parallel with this development, we discuss the chemical and petroleum industries
and the major processes by which most of the classical products and feedstocks are made.
We begin in Chapter 2 with a section on “The Real World,” in which we describe the reactors
and reactions in a petroleum refinery and then the reactions and reactors in making polyester.
These are all catalytic multiphase reactors of almost unbelievable size and complexity. By
Chapter 12 the principles of operation of these reactors will have been developed.
Then throughout the book the reactions and reactors of the petroleum and commodity
chemical industries are reintroduced as the relevant principles for their description are
developed.
Along with these topics, we attempt a brief historical survey of chemical technology
from the start of the Industrial Revolution through speculations on what will be important in
the twenty-first century. The rise of the major petroleum and chemical companies has created
the chemical engineering profession, and their current downsizing creates significant issues
for our students’ future careers.
Projection into the future is of course the goal of all professional education, and we
at least mention the microelectronic, food, pharmaceutical, ceramic, and environmental
businesses which may be major employers of chemical engineering students. The notion
of evolution of technology from the past to the future seems to be a way to get students to
begin thinking about their future without faculty simply projecting our prejudices of how
the markets will change.
Finally, our goal is to offer a compact but comprehensive coverage of all topics by
which chemical reactors are described and to do this in a single consistent notation. We
want to get through the fundamental ideas as quickly and simply as possible so that the
larger issues of new applications can be appreciated. It is our intent that an instructor should
then have time to emphasize those topics in which he or she is especially knowledgeable
or regards as important and interesting, such as polymerization, safety, environment,
pharmaceuticals, microelectronics, ceramics, foods, etc.
At Minnesota we cover these topics in approximately 30 lectures and 20 recitations.
This requires two to four lectures per chapter to complete all chapters. Obviously some
of the material must be omitted or skimmed to meet this schedule. We assume that most
instructors will not cover all the industrial or historical examples but leave them for students
to read.