Abstract

Citation

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Winkel, B. (2022). 5-007-ChemOpt-ModelingScenario. SIMIODE, QUBES Educational Resources. doi:10.25334/DC53-EK89

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Article Context

Description

A laboratory experiment is going on in the Projects Lab of your company. A colleague, a production chemist, comes to you for advice.

Compound A is heated to 120^oC in order to produce compounds B and C. The temperature of the pot containing all of these compounds is kept at 120^oC in order to keep the reaction going.

k₁ is the reaction rate constant in units 1/hr for the reaction in which A is converted to B while the reaction rate of converting compound B to C is k₂.

The data from the reaction has been gathered and presented in the scenario.

The goal is to produce compound B for marketing. Thus we seek a mathematical model as an aid in telling us the best time to stop the process and extract compound B for the market. One measure of best is most profit or net return. We know that A costs $0.50 per mole and B sells for $3.50 per mole. Our production engineer friend has found that for compound C we can expect a return of $0.25 per mole from the recovered C.

Find the optimal shutoff time for this process in order to optimize the net return on this process.

Find the optimal shutoff time for this process in order to optimize the net return on this process.