Estudo experimental da agitação intermitente em reator batelada

Abstract

Chemical reactors are used industrially in the transformation of various raw materials into products with higher added value. For this reason, it is important to study how to reduce the costs generated by the use of the reactors, promoting improvements in the reaction processes. In this sense this work promoted a study of intermittent agitation in a batch reactor on a laboratory scale automated by Arduino, with the objective of minimizing the expenditure of electrical energy, without jeopardizing the conversion of the saponification reaction between sodium hydroxide and ethyl acetate. Other factors that could interfere with energy consumption and reaction conversion were also evaluated, but without changing the original reactor settings, so as not to generate additional costs. An experimental planning 23 was carried out with the factors: level of filling, speed and intermittence of agitation. The response variables considered were: conversion (%) and spent electricity (Wh). It was observed that in all experiments the conversion was greater than 90% in a time of 3 hours of reaction. None of the factors evaluated was statistically significant for the conversion. As for electric energy, the factor that most contributed to its reduction was the intermittency of agitation, considered statistically significant. In addition to the experimental planning, 3 experiments were performed, in duplicate, keeping the agitation constant, without intermittence. In these experiments the conversion was close to the values found in the experimental design, however, the expenditure of electrical energy was higher than all the tests performed with intermittent agitation. Thus, it was concluded that intermittent agitation is able to reduce the electrical energy used for the proposed reaction, without interfering its conversion, promoting the optimization of the batch reactor used.