Modeling the effect of wall capacitance on the dynamics of an exothermic reaction system in a batch reactor (Q621200)

In the present work, hydrolysis of the acetic anhydride reaction was used to investigate the existence and effect of parametric sensitivity with respect to the input parameters, namely cooling water flow rate, cooling water feed temperature and wall capacitance. Parametric sensitivity was observed for a small change in coolant water flow rate and feed temperature. A mathematical model for the reactor was developed by incorporating both mass and energy balance with ordinary coupled differential equations. The unsteady state energy balance for the reactor temperature takes into account heat generation due to the chemical reaction and energy losses by cooling water and through natural convection. The theoretical simulation was developed based on published kinetic parameters by using the 0DE15s solver of the \texttt{Matlab} software (Gear method). The experiments and theoretical simulations were conducted for the hydrolysis of acetic anhydride by varying input parameters such as cooling water flow rate, cooling water feed temperature and wall capacitance for studying parametric sensitivity. The effect of extraneous wall capacitance showed that the batch reactor exhibited non-parametric sensitivity behavior dynamics, experimentally, and it has been illustrated that the presence of extraneous wall capacitance tends to stabilize the reactor by exhibiting insensitivity. The transients are in good agreement with the experimental temperature data when the reactor is operating at high coolant water flow rate. The predicted transient temperatures are in satisfactory agreement with the experimental temperature data when the reactor is operating at low coolant water flow rate.