Cellular Automata Modeling of Continuous Stirred Tank Reactors

The classical dynamical systems model of continuous stirred tank reactors (CSTR) in which a first order chemical reaction takes place is reformulated in terms of stochastic cellular automata by extending previous works of Seyborg (1997) and Neuforth (2000) by including the feed flow of chemical reactants. We show that this cellular automata procedure is able to simulate the dilution rate and the mixing process in the CSTR, as well as the details of the heat removal due to the jacket. The cellular automata approach is expected to be of considerable applicability at any industrial scales and especially for any type of microchemical systems