RECUPERADORES (INTERCAMBIADORES A TRAVÉS

DE UNA PARED SIN ALMACENAMIENTO DE CALOR)

En los recuperadores las dos corrientes circulantes están separadas por una
pared y el calor tiene que pasar a través de esta pared. Se han utilizado muchos
modelos diferentes y una serie de ellos se estudiará en los capítulos posteriores.

En la Fig. 12.1 se indican los esquemas de algunos de estos numerosos modelos

diferentes. Los recuperadores son ciertamente menos eficaces que los
intercambiadores de contacto directo, ya que la presencia de la pared estorba el
flujo de calor, Pero este tipo de intercambiador se utiliza cuando los fluidos no
pueden ponerse en contacto directo, como sistemas gas-gas, líquidos miscibles,
sólidos solubles o productos reactivos.

SPIRAL HEAT EXCHANGERS

As appears on Figure 8.8(c), the hot fluid enters at the center of the spiral element
and flows to the periphery; flow of the cold fluid is counter current, entering at the
periphery and leaving at the center.
Heat transfer coefficients are high on both sides, and there is no correction to the
log mean temperature difference because of the true counter current action. These
factors may lead to surface requirements 20% or so less than those of shell-and-
tube exchangers.
Spiral types generally may be superior with highly viscous fluids at moderate
reassures. Design procedures for spiral plate and the related spiral tube
exchangers are presented by Minton (1970). Walker (1982) lists 24 manufacturers
of this kind of equipment.
Reactores Enchaquetados

They relate the Nusselt number to the Reynolds and Prandtl numbers and several
other factors. In the equation for jacketed tanks, for example,

Jacketed PFTR

The cooled TR is frequently operated with a cooling jacket surrounding the reactor
in a tube-and-shell configuration. This looks simply like a tube-in-shell heat
exchanger, typically with catalyst in the tube to catalyze the reaction. A major
example of this reactor is ethylene oxidation to ethylene oxide (EO)

As noted in Chapter 2, the heat release in the second reaction is much greater, so
that much more heat is released if the selectivity to EO decreases. For world-scale
ethylene oxide plants the reaction is run in a reactor consisting of several thousand
l-in-diameter tubes -20 ft long in a tube-and-shell heat exchanger. Heat transfer is
accomplished using boiling recirculating hydrocarbon on the shell side to absorb
the reaction heat. This heat transfer method assures that the temperature of the
tubes is constant at the boiling point of the fluid. If the coolant flow rate is
sufficiently high in a jacketed reactor or if boiling liquid is used as the heat transfer
fluid, then T, is constant, as we have assumed implicitly in the previous discussion.
However, with finite flow rate in the jacket, the coolant may heat up, and we must
now distinguish between concurrent and counter current flows. While it is true that
counter current operation gives better heat transfer for an ordinary exchanger, this
is not usually desired for a tubular reactor. Heat is generated mostly near the
reactor entrance, and the maximum amount of cooling is needed there. In counter
current flow, the coolant has been heated
before it reaches this region, while in concurrent operation, the coolant is the
coldest exactly where the heat load is greatest. Thus concurrent operation reduces
the hot spot, which can plague cooled tubular reactors with exothermic reactions.
Illustrated in Figure 5-21 are possible temperatures of reactor and coolant versus
position z for concurrent and counter current operation.

A major goal in wall cooling is to spread out the hot zone and prevent very high
peak temperatures. High peak temperatures cause poor reaction selectivity, cause
carbon
formation, deactivate catalysts, and cause corrosion problems in the reactor walls.
Concurrent flows spread out the hot zone and cause lower peak temperatures, but
many additional design features must be considered in designing jacketed
reactors.
Temperature profiles in jacketed reactors can be examined rather simply by writing
the energy balance on the coolant and on the reactor. In analogy with the energy-
balance equation in the PFTR

we assume that the coolant also obeys plug flow; so the energy balance on the
coolant becomes

We have of course omitted any heat generation by reaction in the coolant, and we
have defined the corresponding quantities for the coolant with the subscript c. Note
also that we have reversed the sign of the heat-removal term because whatever
heat is transferred from the reactor must be transferred into the coolant.
The student should recognize these problems with the jacketed reactor as similar
to those encountered in analysis of heat exchangers. The only difference in
chemical reactors is that now we have considerable heat generation by chemical
reaction on one side of the heat exchanger. The equipment used for these reactors
in fact looks very similar to heat exchangers, but pressures, temperatures, and
catalysts must be chosen very carefully, and materials of construction are
frequently more difficult to deal with in the reactive environment.

The jacketed CSTR

The jacketed reactor may be assumed to have mixed flow (either by stirring the
jacket or by mixing through natural convection); so the jacket also obeys the CSTR
equation. Therefore, for the jacketed reactor with a single reaction we write the
three equations
Note that the heat transfer rates across the wall are the same except for the sign
change. The residence time of the coolant in the jacket is tc = Vc/v,.
We now have to solve the three algebraic equations to find CA, T, and T, for given
values of parameters. It is evident that the possible heating of the coolant by
exothermic reactions provides added instability to the CSTR, and makes multiple
steady states even more likely. This occurs because the reaction heats the coolant
and thus lowers its effectiveness in controlling the reactor temperature.