Process Control: Modeling, Design, and Simulation

2.5. Material and Energy Balances

Section 2.3 covered models which consist of material balances only. These are useful if thermal effects are not important, where system properties, reaction rates, etc. do not depend on temperature, or if the system is truly isothermal (constant temperature). Many chemical processes have important thermal effects, so it is necessary to develop material and energy balance models. One key is that a basis must always be selected when evaluating an intensive property such as enthalpy.

Review of Thermodynamics

Developing correct energy balance equations is not trivial and the chemical engineering literature contains many incorrect derivations. Chapter 5 of the book by Denn (1986) points out numerous examples where ...