Kinetics and Reactor Design

Course Description

Kinetics and Reactor Design is the course the profession is named for: the reactor is the one piece of equipment that makes a chemical plant chemical, and this is where you learn to size it. The statewide description covers elementary, complex and catalytic kinetics as applied to the engineering design of batch and backmix reactors.

%s It is the most widely carried chemical engineering course in the state — five institutions, including FIU, which teaches it although it awards no chemical engineering degree. That breadth is unusual in this prefix and makes this one of the few ECH numbers a student is likely to find wherever they are.

Carried by five Florida public institutions.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Determine rate laws from experimental data by differential and integral methods.
• Apply the design equations for batch, CSTR, PFR and packed-bed reactors.
• Size reactors in series and parallel, and choose a configuration for a given conversion.
• Analyse multiple reactions and optimise for selectivity and yield, not only conversion.
• Apply energy balances to reactors, including adiabatic and non-isothermal operation, and assess thermal runaway.
• Analyse catalytic reactions: mechanisms, adsorption isotherms, rate-limiting steps and deactivation.
• Assess diffusion limitations in catalyst particles — the Thiele modulus and effectiveness factor.

Optional Outcomes

• Non-ideal flow and residence-time distribution analysis.
• Bioreactors and enzyme kinetics.
• Polymerisation reaction engineering.
• Reactor simulation in Polymath, MATLAB or Aspen.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Mole balances and the reactor design equations.
• Conversion and reactor sizing; reactors in series.
• Rate laws, stoichiometry and data analysis.
• Isothermal reactor design.
• Multiple reactions; selectivity and yield.
• Energy balances and non-isothermal reactors; multiple steady states.
• Catalysis, catalytic reactors and deactivation.
• Diffusion and reaction; the Thiele modulus.

Optional Topics

• Residence-time distribution and non-ideal reactors.
• Bioreactors and enzyme kinetics.
• Polymerisation reactors.
• Reactor safety and runaway analysis in depth.

Resources & Tools

• Fogler, Elements of Chemical Reaction Engineering — close to universal, and its companion website and Polymath problems are part of how most programmes teach it.
• Levenspiel, Chemical Reaction Engineering, is the classic alternative.
• Polymath, MATLAB or Python for the coupled differential equations; the reactor design equations are solved numerically almost from the start.

Career Pathways

Named on the Chemical Engineer career path. Reaction engineering leads into process design, catalysis research, pharmaceutical and specialty chemicals manufacturing, and any role where yield and selectivity are the commercial question. ⚠ The thermal-runaway material is also safety material — it is the analysis behind several of the industry’s worst accidents, and employers notice students who can discuss it.

Special Information

Four titles, one subject

⚠ Branding, not divergence. All five teach the Fogler curriculum and the statewide description covers all of them. Register by the number.

⚠⚠ FIU teaches this and awards no chemical engineering degree

FIU carries three ECH numbers — this one, ECH3271 and ECH4826 — while awarding degrees in seven other engineering CIP codes and none in chemical engineering. ⚠⚠ So an FIU student can take reaction engineering and cannot major in the field. It is a useful elective for environmental, biomedical and materials students there; it is not the start of a chemical engineering degree, and a student intending that degree should read the Chemical Engineer path before planning around it.

UF carries it at four credits

Four of the five carriers run it at 3 credits; UF at 4. The additional credit generally reflects a heavier computational component. ⚠ A student transferring into UF with the 3-credit version is a credit short against the requirement.

⚠⚠ Only four Florida institutions teach this, and two of them are one college

Chemical engineering is awarded by four Florida public institutions in three cities: the University of Florida (110 bachelor’s degrees a year), the University of South Florida (73), Florida State (27) and Florida A&M (4). Florida State and Florida A&M share the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, a single joint college in Tallahassee, which is why their records for this prefix are identical down to the title.

⚠⚠ So a carrier count in this prefix overstates how many independent programmes exist. A course carried by “FAMU and FSU” is one programme’s course, not two institutions agreeing. Read the hedging on this page accordingly, and treat anything stated about content as a description of a small number of specific curricula rather than a Florida-wide norm.

⚠ Neither UCF nor FIU awards a chemical engineering degree — the two largest universities in the state by enrolment. See the Chemical Engineer career path for what that means if you live in Orlando or Miami.

Accreditation and licensure

All four Florida programmes are accredited by ABET’s Engineering Accreditation Commission, which is what employers screen on and what carries the four-year route to Professional Engineer licensure under s. 471.013(1)(a), Florida Statutes. ⚠ Accreditation attaches to a named programme at a named institution, not to a course list — verify the specific programme in ABET’s own search.

Most chemical engineers never license: process plants fall under the industrial exemption. ⚠ The Florida exceptions are environmental and water engineering consulting, where work is sealed for public clients. Sit the FE examination in your final year regardless — the chemical FE is written for the curriculum you have just finished and will never be easier.