Desenvolvimento de um reator automatizado em escala de laboratório de baixo custo microcontrolado por ESP32

Abstract

The design of chemical reactors is one of the main areas of work in chemical engineering. The chemical reactor is a vessel where chemical reactions, mass and heat transfers take place. The design of a chemical reactor deals with multiple aspects of chemical engineering, which chemical engineers work on to obtain the maximization of products for the given reaction. There are several types of chemical reactors, among them the main ones are the batch reactors, in which it is assumed that there is no input or output of material and that the reactor is well mixed. CSTR (Continuous Stirred Tank Reactors) type reactors that are made up of agitation tanks interconnected in series being a continuous process. Another important reactor is the piston flow reactor (PRF), in which the reaction mixture continuously passes through a tubular reactor. The present work had as objective to develop a chemical reactor in laboratory scale implementing automation and control strategy. The use of a human-machine interface provides the process with better monitoring and optimization. The microcontroller used was the ESP32, which is responsible for real-time data acquisition from the sensors and for controlling the reactor heating through the PID control technique, which can be managed by the dashboard of the Arduino IOT Cloud platform. The assembly of the reactor on a laboratory scale was carried out successfully without major problems. Then, a validation test was performed so that the reactor is considered functional. The test was carried out with water, agitation and reactor temperature were controlled. The results demonstrate that the reactor is functional because there is no considerable temperature gradient.