Chemical Reaction Engineering (CHE 331A)

Assignment-1 (2018-19 II)

1. A human being (75 kg) consumes about 6000 kJ of food per day. Assume that the food is all
glucose and that the overall reaction is

C6H12O6 + 602 → 6C02 + 6H20, -ΔHr = 2816 kJ

Find man's metabolic rate in terms of moles of oxygen used per m3 of person per second. Assume the
density of man to be 1000 kg/m3.

2. a. Find the overall order of reaction for which the rate constant has units of (mol/L)-3/2 sec-1
b. For the reaction A + B → 2B + C, What the relation between rA , rB ?
c. For the reaction P + 2Q → 3R, what is the molar rate of consumption of P?

3. The rate constant of a reaction of the temperature 336 K is 0.25 min-1 and at 347 K, it is 30 min-1.
Calculate the activation energy assuming that rate constant varies as per Arrhenius law?

4. The rule of thumb that the rate of reaction doubles for a 10°C increase in temperature occurs only
at a specific temperature for a given activation energy.

(a) Develop a relationship between the temperature and activation energy for which the rule of
thumb holds. Neglect any variation of concentration with temperature.
(b) Determine the activation energy and frequency factor from the following data:

k ( min-1) 0.001 0.050

T (◦C) 0 100

5. The rate law for the reaction 2A+ B → C is –rA= kA CA2 with kA = 25 dm3/mol2 s.
a) What are the values of kB and kC?
b) At low temperatures the rate law for the reaction 0.5 A + 1.5 B→ C is –rA = kA CA CB. If the
reaction is reversible at high temperatures, what is the rate law?

6. The pyrolysis of ethane proceeds with an activation energy of about 300 KJ/mol. How much faster
is the decomposition at 650 °C than at 500 °C ?
 Enzyme
7. For the enzyme-substrate reaction A R. The rate of disappearance of substrate is
given by
1760 [𝐴][𝐸0 ]
−𝑟𝐴 = 𝑚𝑜𝑙/𝑚3 𝑠
6 + 𝐶𝐴
What are the units of the two constants? Where the concentration of reactant A and enzymes E are in
mol/m3.

8. The maximum allowable temperature for a reactor is 800 K. At present our operating set point is
780 K, the 20-K margin of safety to account for feed, sluggish controls, etc. Now, with a more
sophisticated control system we would be able to raise our set point to 792 K with the same margin
of safety that we now have. By how much can the reaction rate, hence, production rate, be raised by
this change if the reaction taking place in the reactor has an activation energy of 175 kJ/mol?

9. The experimentally determined overall order for the reaction A+B→C+D is 2. Then, out of
following which is correct:

A) Reaction is elementary with a molecularity of 2.

B) Molecularity of the reaction is 2, reaction may not be elementary.
C) Reaction may be elementary with a molecularity of 2.
D) Reaction is elementary but molecularity may not be 2.

10. An irreversible, homogeneous reaction A → products, has the rate expression:

2 𝐶𝐴 2 +0.1 𝐶𝐴
−𝑟𝐴 = , where CA is the concentration of A. CA varies in the range 0.5 - 50 mol/m3. Find
1+50 𝐶𝐴
the reaction order for very high concentrations of A.