August 20, 2012

Reducing solvent in batch reactors

Have you done proper analysis before you try to reduce solvents in batch reactors and replace them with more raw material in a bid to increase capacity? An article mentions about the solvent effect on peroxide decomposition and concludes with the following:
"This study is focused on runaway decompositions as they’re more interesting in plant safety and risk analysis, because in the past they have been the cause of severe accidents. In particular solvent influence has been analyzed, proving that a solvent change has always to be tested before applied in reactor scale in order to avoid an anomalous runaway behaviour of the reaction. Screening calorimetry allowed us to analyze these processes in safety and to gain useful results such as onset temperatures, ranges of temperature and pressure evolved by reactions and others. Remember that screening equipments are not adiabatic and data have to be validated by tests run in adiabatic and reaction calorimeters, where real operational conditions (such as agitation and heat transfer) can be simulated; the use of the TSu makes it possible to save time and reduce the number of experiments with laboratory scale calorimeters".

Read the article in this link. 

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