Chemical Reaction Engineering: Essentials, Exercises and Examples

Chemical Reaction Engineering: Essentials, Exercises and Examples presents the essentials of kinetics, reactor design and chemical reaction engineering for undergraduate students. Concise and didactic in its approach, it features over 70 resolved examples and many exercises.

The work is organized in two parts: in the first part kinetics is presented focusing on the reaction rates, the influence of different variables and the determination of specific rate parameters for different reactions both homogeneous and heterogeneous. This section is complemented with the classical kinetic theory and in particular with many examples and exercises. The second part introduces students to the distinction between ideal and non-ideal reactors and presents the basic equations of batch and continuous ideal reactors, as well as specific isothermal and non-isothermal systems. The main emphasis however is on both qualitative and quantitative interpretation by comparing and combining reactors with and without diffusion and mass transfer effects, complemented with several examples and exercises. Finally, non-ideal and multiphase systems are presented, as well as specific topics of biomass thermal processes and heterogeneous reactor analyses. The work closes with a unique section on the application of theory in laboratory practice with kinetic and reactor
experiments.

This textbook will be of great value to undergraduate and graduate students in chemical engineering as well as to graduate students in and researchers of kinetics and catalysis.

Martin Schmal graduated in Chemical Engineering at the Engineering Faculty of the Catholic University of S. Paulo (1964), he received a Master’s degree in 1966 from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro/COPPE, Brazil, and obtained his doctorate degree (Dr. Ing.) from the Technische Universität Berlin, Germany (1970). He became an associate professor at the Chemical Engineering Department of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in 1970, became Full Professor in 1985 and has been Emeritus since 2008. He specialized at the Institut du Recherche sur la Catalyse, Lyon, France (1981) and at the University of Karlsruhe, Germany (1983).

He has been teaching Kinetics and Reactors to undergraduate students at the Chemical Engineering School, Catalysis to graduate students at COPPE and a Postgraduate course in Engineering for over 40 years, since 1973.

The main research topics at Nucleous of Catalysis are catalysis, the catalytic process and nanoscience. He maintains close contacts with the industry, in particular with Petrobras and various petrochemical industries: Oxiteno, Copene, Copesul, Petroquimica União, Braskem, Degussa and others, developing processes and catalysts, and has more than 20 patents to his name.

He is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Science (elected in 1999) and of the International Catalysis Society (since 2000). He has received several awards and in particular the Humboldt Research Award from the Humboldt Foundation – Germany (2002), the Premio Mexico for Science and Technology (Science Consulting Council, Mexico, 2002); the Senior Researcher award from the Ibero-American society (2010); the SCOPUS award – Elsevier-CAPES (2009) and finally the Distinguished Professor award from Coppe – Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (2013). He has published more than 220 articles in international journals; has presented and published 250 papers in Annals of International Congresses, Symposia and Meetings and published the following books: Chemical Kinetics and Reactor Design (1. Ed. 1982, 2. Ed. 2010), Heterogeneous Catalysis (2012) and Natural Gas Conversion VIII – Surface Science (2011).

His other activities include being peer reviewer for the following journals: Journals for Physical Chemistry, Journal of Catalysis, Surface Science, Applied Catalysis A and B, Catalysis Today, ACS Catalysis, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Catalysis Letters, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, Material Science, etc. He was on the editorial board of Applied Catalysis A (1992–1999) and of Catalysis Today (2000–2006). He was Founder and President of the Brazilian Catalysis Society (1998–2006).

His external collaborators include H.J. Freund (Max Planck Berlin), E. Lombardo (Argentina), Schlögl and Behrens (Max Planck Berlin), Albert Vannice (Penn State University, USA) and Ted Oyama (Virginia Tech, USA).