2. Preliminary reactor design calculations

The latter is fed at atmospheric pressure with an alcohol-water mixture of azeotropic composition. This feed corresponds to an inlet molar flow rate of 115.4 mol · s ^-1 of ethanol and 13.6 mol · s ^-1 of water.

Defining X as the ethanol conversion rate and I as the inert ratio, i.e. the molar ratio, in the input flow rate, between the inerts and the sum of the actives (here I = 0.118), we can write the expressions for the partial pressures of the reactants and products: $p_{\text{A}}=\frac{P{T}_0}{P_{0}T}\frac{\left(1-X\right)}{\left(1+X+I\right)},p_{\text{R}}=p_{\text{S}}=\frac{P{T}_0}{P_{0}T}\frac{X}{\left(1+X+I\right)}$