Abstract
It is postulated that the mixing conditions in a flow-through reactor can be characterized as having either completely mixed, completely plug flow, or some network of completely mixed and plug flow component vessels. A frequency-response technique is used to obtain an experimental Bodé plot for arbitrarily mixed vessels. The interpretation of the Bodé plot is discussed, and , in light of this interpretation, a network of plug flow and completely mixed components is specified as a flow model. A Rosenbrock search routine is used to improve the parameter estimates of the model. To verify the model, a second order reaction was run through the vessel and the experimentally measured conversion was compared to that predicted by the model.
It is shown that the modeling technique, in addition to describing the mixing in the system, will indicate inactive volume, as well as measure the extent of any channeling or short circuiting in the reactor.
