The Scope of the Chemical Reaction Engineering Module
The Chemical Reaction Engineering Module is tailor-made for the modeling of chemical systems primarily affected by chemical composition, reaction kinetics, fluid flow, and temperature as functions of space, time, and each other. It has a number of physics interfaces to model chemical reaction kinetics, mass transport in dilute, concentrated, and electric potential-affected solutions, laminar and porous media flows, and energy transport.
Included in these physics interfaces are the kinetic expressions for the reacting systems and models for the definition of mass transport. A variety of ready-made expressions are also accessible in order to calculate a system’s thermodynamic and transport properties.
Like all COMSOL modules, the physics interfaces described in this guide include all the steps available for the modeling process, which are described in detail in the COMSOL Multiphysics Reference Manual (see Where Do I Access the Documentation and Application Libraries?), for example:
•
Definitions of parameters and model variables.
•
Creating, importing, and manipulating a geometry.
•
Specifying the chemical and transport material properties.
•
Defining the reaction formulas and physics in the system and on boundaries, and coupling them to other features.
•
Meshing a modeling domain with appropriate consideration given to the reaction system’s behavior.
•
Solving the equations that describe a system for stationary or dynamic behavior, or as a parametric or optimization study.
•
Analyzing results to present for further use.
Once a model is defined, you can go back and make changes to all the branches listed above, while maintaining consistency in the other definitions throughout. You can restart the solver, for example, using the existing solution as an initial guess or even alter the geometry, while the equations and boundary conditions are kept consistent through the associative geometry feature. It is also useful to review the Introduction to the Chemical Reaction Engineering Module included with the module’s documentation.
While a major focus of this module is on chemical reactors and reacting systems, it is also extensively used for systems where mass transport is the major component. This includes unit operations equipment, separation and mixing processes, corrosion, chromatography, and electrophoresis. The module is also widely used for educational purposes including courses about chemical engineering, chemical reaction engineering, electrochemical engineering, biotechnology, and transport phenomena.
In addition to its application in traditional chemical industries, it is a popular tool for investigating clean technology processes (for example, catalytic monoliths and reactive filters), applications such as microlaboratories in biotechnology, and in the development of sensors and equipment in analytical chemistry.
The notations and structure in this module were inspired by the book Transport Phenomena by Bird, Stewart, and Lightfoot. The work by H. Scott Fogler, Elements of Chemical Reaction Engineering, was also used as an inspiration.