Elementary Principles of Chemical Processes

Citation

Felder, R. M., Rousseau, R. W., & Bullard, L. G. (2020). Elementary Principles of Chemical Processes (4th ed.). Wiley.

Chapter Summary

The fourth edition has ten chapters in three parts (Part 1, Engineering Problem Analysis, Chapters 1–3; Part 2, Material Balances, Chapters 4–6; Part 3, Energy Balances, Chapters 7–10), followed by an appendix on computational techniques, an appendix of physical property tables, answers to the "Test Yourself" questions and answers to selected problems. The front matter includes a nomenclature list and a glossary. From Chapter 2 onwards, each chapter opens with learning objectives and closes with a summary and a long problem set. In the publisher's words, the book prepares students to formulate and solve material and energy balances on chemical process systems and lays the foundation for later courses.

Chapter 1: What Some Chemical Engineers Do for a Living

A two-page opening that does not try to define chemical engineering. Instead it follows a graduating class into manufacturing, government and consulting, graduate school, medicine, law and business. It ends with the claim that a common set of problem-solving techniques serves all these careers, and that those techniques are the subject of the book.

Chapter 2: Introduction to Engineering Calculations

Units and dimensions, unit conversion, systems of units, force and weight, numerical calculation and estimation, dimensional homogeneity and dimensionless quantities, and the representation and analysis of process data.

Chapter 3: Processes and Process Variables

The variables used to describe a process: mass and volume, flow rate, chemical composition, pressure and temperature.

Chapter 4: Fundamentals of Material Balances

The longest and most important chapter. It covers process classification, the general balance equation, the procedure for material balance calculations, multiple-unit processes, recycle and bypass, reaction stoichiometry, balances on reactive processes and combustion reactions, and closes with further considerations about chemical processes.

Chapter 5: Single-Phase Systems

Physical property estimation for single phases: liquid and solid densities, ideal gases, equations of state for nonideal gases and the compressibility-factor equation of state.

Chapter 6: Multiphase Systems

Phase equilibrium: single-component equilibrium, the Gibbs phase rule, gas–liquid systems with one condensable component and with several, solutions of solids in liquids, equilibrium between two liquid phases, and adsorption on solid surfaces.

Chapter 7: Energy and Energy Balances

The forms of energy and the first law of thermodynamics; kinetic and potential energy; energy balances on closed systems and on open systems at steady state; tables of thermodynamic data; energy balance procedures; and mechanical energy balances.

Chapter 8: Balances on Nonreactive Processes

Enthalpy calculations for changes in pressure and temperature, phase changes, and mixing and solution.

Chapter 9: Balances on Reactive Processes

Heats of reaction, Hess's law, heats of formation and combustion, energy balances on reactive processes, and fuels and combustion.

Chapter 10: Balances on Transient Processes

The general balance equation revisited for unsteady operation: transient material balances, energy balances on single-phase nonreactive processes, and simultaneous transient balances.

Key Concepts

Part 1: Engineering problem analysis

• Dimensional homogeneity: every valid equation must have the same dimensions in each additive term, a check on any calculation.
• Process variables: flow rate, composition, pressure and temperature, the quantities that specify a process stream.
• Estimation: approximate calculation to check whether a computed result is reasonable.

Part 2: Material balances

• General balance equation: input plus generation minus output minus consumption equals accumulation.
• Recycle and bypass: streams returned to or diverted around a process unit, which change how balances must be set up.
• Reaction stoichiometry: the quantitative relations of a balanced chemical reaction, used to set up balances on reactive processes.
• Gibbs phase rule: the number of intensive variables that can be specified independently for a system at equilibrium.

Part 3: Energy balances

• First law for open systems: the steady-state energy balance relating enthalpy, kinetic and potential energy changes to heat and work.
• Enthalpy changes in nonreactive processes: the effects of pressure change, temperature change, phase change, and mixing and solution, which Chapter 8 treats in turn.
• Heat of reaction and Hess's law: obtaining reaction enthalpies by combining known reactions or heats of formation.
• Transient balances: balances in which accumulation is not zero, leading to differential equations in time.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A tested teaching design. Wiley notes that Richard Felder received the American Society for Engineering Education's first Lifetime Achievement Award in Engineering Education, and describes the book as reflecting long study of effective teaching. The structure shows it: each chapter begins with learning objectives and ends with a summary and problems, "Test Yourself" questions have answers at the back, and a nomenclature list and glossary are provided.
• Problems across modern applications. The fourth edition adds or revises about 350 end-of-chapter problems. Many come from newer application areas, including safety, the environment, bioengineering, alternative energy and materials, and an index of selected applications helps instructors find them.
• Systematic method. Chapter 4 lays down a general procedure for balance calculations before applying it to multiple units, recycle and reactions. The same pattern returns for energy balances in Chapter 7, so students learn one transferable approach rather than a collection of special cases.
• Teaching resources. Wiley offers "Notes With Gaps" for Chapters 2–9, a lecture coursepack with blanks for students to complete in class, and APEx, an Excel add-in that removes routine physical-property calculations.

Limitations

• Long and dense. About 670 pages of text, with Chapter 4 alone running to more than 120 pages including problems. A single course rarely covers all ten chapters in depth.
• Narrow by intent. The book covers material and energy balances and the property estimation they need. Rates, equipment design and process economics are left to later courses, so students who want a picture of the discipline as a whole should also read an overview.
• Limited computation. Computation appears as an appendix on least squares, iterative solution of nonlinear equations and numerical integration, together with the APEx add-in; there is no chapter on computer-aided balance calculations. Courses that teach flowsheet simulation will need other material.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is the main textbook for the first core course in the chemical process engineering list. Wiley states that it is used in more than four out of five US chemical engineering programmes. Morton Denn's Chemical Engineering: An Introduction is the other introductory book on the list. It is much shorter and builds simple models of liquid-phase processes, such as membrane separations, bioreactors and membrane reactors, to show what chemical engineers do. Read Denn alongside Felder for perspective, or before it as orientation, but rely on Felder for the systematic method and for practice.

Each later book in the list builds on a part of Felder. Chapters 6 and 8 prepare students for the separation processes in McCabe, Smith and Harriott's Unit Operations of Chemical Engineering and Geankoplis, Hersel and Lepek's Transport Processes and Separation Process Principles. Chapters 4 and 9 feed into Fogler's Elements of Chemical Reaction Engineering. Towler and Sinnott's Chemical Engineering Design, written for senior design work, draws on the whole sequence when flowsheets have to be balanced in full.

How to Use This Book

The book is written for students in their first chemical engineering course, typically in the first or second year. First-year calculus, general chemistry and introductory physics are a sufficient background; Chapter 10's transient balances lead to differential equations in time.

• Core sequence: Chapters 2–4, then 5–6, then 7–9. Chapter 4 is the heart of the book: spend the most time here, and follow its calculation procedure in full on every problem, setting the problem up completely before calculating anything.
• Lighter treatment possible: Chapter 2 for students already confident with units, and the adsorption section of Chapter 6 if the course does not need it.
• End of course or second term: Chapter 10 on transient balances, which links to later process dynamics and control.
• Read once, early: Chapter 1, for a sense of where the methods lead.

Work many problems; fluency comes from repetition. Use the "Test Yourself" answers to check reading comprehension, the answers to selected problems to check numerical work, and the applications index to find problems in a field that interests you. Appendix B holds the steam tables, heat capacities and other property data that the energy balance chapters need, so learn to read them early.