STOICHIOMETRY AND PROCESS CALCULATIONS

Book excerpt: This textbook is designed for undergraduate courses in chemical engineering and related disciplines such as biotechnology, polymer technology, petrochemical engineering, electrochemical engineering, environmental engineering, safety engineering and industrial chemistry. The chief objective of this text is to prepare students to make analysis of chemical processes through calculations and also to develop in them systematic problem-solving skills. The students are introduced not only to the application of law of combining proportions to chemical reactions (as the word ‘stoichiometry’ implies) but also to formulating and solving material and energy balances in processes with and without chemical reactions. The book presents the fundamentals of chemical engineering operations and processes in an accessible style to help the students gain a thorough understanding of chemical process calculations. It also covers in detail the background materials such as units and conversions, dimensional analysis and dimensionless groups, property estimation, P-V-T behaviour of fluids, vapour pressure and phase equilibrium relationships, humidity and saturation. With the help of examples, the book explains the construction and use of reference-substance plots, equilibrium diagrams, psychrometric charts, steam tables and enthalpy composition diagrams. It also elaborates on thermophysics and thermochemistry to acquaint the students with the thermodynamic principles of energy balance calculations. Key Features : • SI units are used throughout the book. • Presents a thorough introduction to basic chemical engineering principles. • Provides many worked-out examples and exercise problems with answers. • Objective type questions included at the end of the book serve as useful review material and also assist the students in preparing for competitive examinations such as GATE.