Stability analysis of a PFTR reactor for a first order kinetic reaction using the Lyapunov functionals

Abstract

The stability of reactors having encompassing concentration and temperature parameters, such as continuous flow stirred tank reactors (CSTR), has been widely explored in the literature; however, there are few papers about the stability of tubular reactor having distributed spatial concentration and temperature parameters such as the plow flow tubular reactor (PFTR). This paper analyses the stability of isothermal and non-isothermal PFTR reactors using the Lyapunov functional method. The first order kinetic reaction was selected because one of this paper’s objectives was to apply Lyapunov functionals to stability analysis of distributed parameter reactors (technique used in electrical engineering systems’ stability analysis). The stability analysis revealed asymptotically stable temperature and concentration profiles for isothermal PFTR, non-isothermal PFTR with kinetic constant independent of temperature and adiabatic non-isothermal PFTR. Analysis revealed an asymptotically stability region for the heat exchange reactor and an uncertain region where it may have oscillations.