| This book is an outgrowth of an earlier book, Chemical Reactor Design, John Wiley & Sons, 1987. The title is different and reflects a new emphasis on optimization and particularly on scaleup, a topic rarely covered in undergraduate or graduate education but of paramount importance to many practicing engineers. The treatment of biochemical and polymer reaction engineering is also more extensive than normal.
Practitioners are the primary audience for the new book. Here, in one spot, you will find a reasonably comprehensive treatment of reactor design, optimization and scaleup. Spend a few minutes becoming comfortable with the notation (anyone bothering to read a preface obviously has the inclination), and you will find practical answers to many design problems.
The book is also useful for undergraduate and graduate courses in chemical engineering. Some faults of the old book have been eliminated. One fault was its level of difficulty. It was too hard for undergraduates at most U.S. universities. The new book is better. Known rough spots have been smoothed, and it is easier to skip advanced material without loss of continuity. However, the new book remains terse and somewhat more advanced in its level of treatment than is the current U.S. standard. Its goal as a text is not to train students in the application of existing solutions but to educate them for the solution of new problems. Thus, the reader should be prepared to work out the details of some examples rather than expect a complete solution. |
