Description

The Armfield CEXC family is a range of chemical reactors specifically developed for the teaching and demonstration of chemical reactor capabilities to chemical engineering students. Real chemical reactions take place within the reactors. Armfield has developed a number of representative reactions which are easy and safe for students to use in the laboratory environment.

The CEXC Chemical reactors teaching unit provides the services required to run the various reactor types. It includes; a hot water re-circulator used to control the temperature of the reactions, glass feed vessels for the reactants, two peristaltic pumps to pump the reagents to the reactors, computer software for data logging, sensors and instrumentation.

The CEXC is fully computer controlled, supplied with software to allow the user to; vary the feed pump speeds and flow rates, vary the heater power in the hot water, implement a PID control loop ensuring stable temperatures, switch on and off the hot water pump and to control the speed of the stirrers used on some of the reactors.

Instrumentation for temperature and conductivity measurements is also supplied and these values are displayed on the computer screen. Two ‘K’ type thermocouples are included; one for the hot water and one for the reactor contents.

Note: An input for a third user-supplied sensor is also provided for project work.

Full educational software is provided with the CEXC for all the Armfield chemical reactors.

Separate programs are provided for each reactor. Typical facilities are:

• All the temperatures and flow rates are displayed on a diagrammatic representation of the equipment
• The feed pump speeds are between 0 and 100%. The predicted flow rate for these speeds can be displayed and used for subsequent calculations. These values can be user calibrated for greater accuracy
• The stirrer speeds can be controlled in a similar manner
• The hot water temperature is set by entering a required temperature set point into a PID control function
• Data from the sensors is logged into a spreadsheet format
• Sophisticated graph plotting facilities are provided. Comparisons between data taken on different runs can be displayed
• Processing of measured values to obtain calculated values
• The data samples (measured and calculated) can be saved or exported directly in Microsoft Excel format
• Data from the sensors can be displayed independently from the data logging. This can be in bar graph format or a recent history graphical display

Unique Features

• Computer control and data logging as standard
• Remote control using the supplied software
• Compact benchtop equipment
• Real-time reaction monitoring instrumentation eliminating the inconvenience and inaccuracy of multiple iterations
• Safe and student friendly
• Transparent reactors enabling the student to see what is happening
• Colour tracer experiments possible for some reactor types
• Cost effective. Up to five reactors share the same service unit

• Five different reactor types available:
• • Continuous stirred tank reactor – CEM-MKII
  • Tubular reactor – CET-MKII
  • Batch reactor – CEB-MKIII
  • Laminar flow reactor – CEZ
  • Plug flow reactor – CEY