Simulation of stirred tank reactors using a dynamic model based on flow characteristics: Presentation held at the 2nd Workshop on Scientific Computing in Chemical Engineering. Hamburg, May 26-28th 1999

Stirred tank reactors are widely used in process industries due to their flexible mode of operation. In batch or semi-batch processes this type of reactor is often used to produce high value products (fine chemicals or pharmaceuticals) whereas large-scale production is done continuously (i. e. polymerization). The correct design of these reactors can be crucial to the profitability of the process by virtue of its influence on reaction yield or product quality. Traditionally the design of the reactors is based on empirical correlations describing macroscopic properties such as power demand, mass transfer coefficient or gas hold-up or on models assuming perfect mixing. The basic idea of our model is to divide the reactor into two zones, one representing the gas phase at the top of the apparatus and one zone describing the fluid below the free liquid surface. Each zone consists of a network of cells, which are connected corresponding to the flow characteristics