Plug Flow Reactor
Plug Flow Reactor
Plug Flow Reactor
Product Description
By: Matthew Grisewood
To start, here is a simple illustration of what a typical plug flow reactor may
look like:
Inlet Flow Outlet Flow
Figure 1: A simple schematic of a plug flow reactor. A reactant is inserted into the tank via the inlet flow.
The reactant is converted to product in the reactor, and the product flows out of the reactor by the
outlet flow.
Inlet Flow Outlet Flow
Figure 2: An interior view of a plug flow reactor. The above diagram approximates what a plug
flow diagram would look like if it were to be sliced in half. The large rectangles show the inner and
outer surfaces of the reactor. The reactants come in through the inlet flow (represented by
squares) and react to form the product (represented by triangles) which is eliminated from the
reactor through the outlet flow. The reaction occurs with the use of a catalyst (represented by
circles), which are attached to the interior wall of the PFR. The actual reactions that are taking
place are represented by double arrows in the reactor. Note that the reactant molecules must
combine with the catalyst molecules at the interior wall of the reactor since the catalyst is not
allowed to move from the wall.
Plug flow reactors are frequently used in the chemical
WHEN industry due to the non‐mixing property of the reactors. It
may seem counter intuitive that a non‐mixed reactor would
ARE PLUG be more advantageous than a mixed reactor such as a CSTR,
FLOW but this is frequently the case. We will examine this
phenomenon later. Plug flow reactors are frequently used in
REACTORS biological reactions when the substrate flows into the reactor
and is converted to product with the use of an enzyme.
USED? Since plug flow reactors have an inlet and outlet stream, they
are useful for continuous production. The streams are
opposite of a batch reactor, which is a reactor that has a
constant volume and has no incoming or outgoing streams.
Some of the times when plug flow reactors are most useful
are for continuous production, large‐scale reactions, or fast
reactions.
𝑟 = 𝑘1 [𝑆][𝑇] for the reaction 𝑆+𝑇→𝑃