Kinetics and thermodynamics

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :

• Chapter 1: Description of the kinetics of complex reactions and methods for reducing the complexity of kinetic models.
• Chapter 2: Heterogeneous catalysis, different stages in a heterogeneous catalytic reaction, chemisorption, elementary steps in heterogeneous catalytic reactions, Hougen-Watson Langmuir-Hinshelwood and Eley-Rideal methods for deriving kinetic expressions based on rate-determining steps, methodologies for kinetic modeling, introduction to advanced methods.
• Chapter 3-I: Interfacial mass and heat transfer, effect on observed reaction rate, transfer coefficient concept, modeling of the mass and heat transfer coefficient, criteria for evaluating the importance of interfacial transfer limitations.
• Chapter 3-II: Intra-particle transport, effect on observed reaction rate, porous properties of catalytic particles, continuum description of a catalytic particle and the concepts of porosity, tortuosity, and effective diffusivity, experimental methods to determine porosity and tortuosity of catalysts, types of diffusion, modeling diffusion-reaction within the catalyst and calculating concentration profiles, Thiele modulus concept and effectiveness factor, generalized Thiele modulus concept, criteria for evaluating the importance of intra-particle diffusion limitations.
• Chapter 4: Introduction to fluid-particle reactions, modeling approaches.
• Chapter 5: Catalyst deactivation, different types of deactivation, catalyst poisoning and modeling approach, coke formation and modeling approaches.
• Chapter 6: Gas-liquid reactions, transport phenomena, two-film diffusion-reaction model, examples of concentration profile calculations within films for simple reactions and for the general case, Hatta number concept.