Forced Periodic Operation: Effect of shapes for two simultaneously imposed modulations

The classical design of continuous chemical reactors exploits steady-state operation, which is optimized and maintained by appropriate control systems. Nevertheless, it is well-known that the reactor performance can be enhanced by applying periodic regimes, like forced modulations of input parameters.The identification and evaluation of suitable periodic operation conditions is challenging. One approach that can be used is based on nonlinear frequency response (NFR) analysis. The focus of this work is the experimental analysis of shapes for two simultaneously imposed modulations (sinusoidal and square) in comparison to results predicted by the NFR method. The acetic anhydride hydrolysis was studied in an adiabatic CSTR exploiting a periodic operation mode, which was found to be superior to the corresponding steady-state operation.