Editing Chemical reactor (section)

===Catalytic reactor===
Although [[catalysis|catalytic]] reactors are often implemented as plug flow reactors, their analysis requires more complicated treatment. The rate of a catalytic reaction is proportional to the amount of catalyst the reagents contact, as well as the concentration of the reactants. With a solid phase catalyst and fluid phase reagents, this is proportional to the exposed area, efficiency of diffusion of reagents in and products out, and efficacy of mixing. Perfect mixing usually cannot be assumed. Furthermore, a catalytic reaction pathway often occurs in multiple steps with intermediates that are chemically bound to the catalyst; and as the chemical binding to the catalyst is also a chemical reaction, it may affect the kinetics. Catalytic reactions often display so-called ''falsified kinetics'', when the apparent kinetics differ from the actual chemical kinetics due to physical transport effects.

The behavior of the catalyst is also a consideration. Particularly in high-temperature petrochemical processes, catalysts are deactivated by processes such as [[sintering]], [[coking]], and [[catalyst poisoning|poisoning]].

A common example of a catalytic reactor is the [[catalytic converter]] that processes toxic components of automobile exhausts. However, most petrochemical reactors are catalytic, and are responsible for most industrial chemical production, with extremely high-volume examples including [[sulfuric acid]], [[ammonia]], reformate/[[BTEX]] (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene), and [[fluid catalytic cracking]]. Various configurations are possible, see [[Heterogeneous catalytic reactor]].

{{Portal|Chemistry|Engineering}}