Chemical Engineering
ChE 321 – Design Project 1
Pick A Rate Law, Any Rate Law
The Scenario:
Professor Z. O. Lite and his fabulously talented group of undergraduate chemical engineers at UND have developed a new catalyst. In preliminary studies it has dramatically increased the rate at which p-xylene is formed from the reaction of toluene and methanol.
Several different reaction mechanisms have been postulated that suggest the following possible rate laws:
(1) (2)
(3) (4)
(5) (6)
(7) (8)
(9) (10)
Your Assignment:
Use experimental rate-pressure data from a differential reactor to find a suitable rate law and determine all relevant rate constants in Arrhenius form (k1=A1e-E1/RT)
You have $10,000 available for lab work. Kinetic rate data for the Toluene + Methanol reaction can be purchased from XYZ Consulting for $200 / run (one run = one data point, not one set of 8 data points). Pick your data carefully so that you don’t run out of money! Fill out a Rate Data Request Form (available on Blackboard) with the experimental conditions you want to run and submit it through Blackboard (Project Groups > XYZ Consulting > File Exchange. Results will be posted (to your group file exchange on Blackboard) daily Monday-Friday, beginning Feb 23.
Write a short (1-2 pages of text, plus supporting tables and figures) project report for the engineers at ABC Chemicals documenting your findings. It should include the following information:
- Proposed rate law with numerical values, units, and estimated uncertainty for all constants
- Discussion and analysis of experimental data that supports proposed rate law and rules out other rate laws
- Table of all experimental data
- Figures, regression results, and any other information used in your analysis
