The financially important reaction to produce the valuable product B (not the real name) was carried out in Jesse Pinkman’s garage (see Breaking Bad Season 3, Episode 7). This Breaking Bad, fly-by-night company, is on a shoestring budget and has very little money to purchase equipment. Fortunately, cousin Bernie has a reactor surplus company and you can get reactors from Bernie. The reaction A → B + C takes place in the liquid phase. Below is the Levenspiel plot for this reaction. You have up to $10,000 to use to purchase reactors from those given below.

A graph plots values of volume against conversion X. The horizontal axis represents the conversion ranging from 0 to 0.9 in increments of 0.1. The vertical axis represents volume with molar flow rate, F subscript A0, ranging from 0 to 80 in increments of 10. The rate decreases steadily from a volume of 50 in the beginning and from 0.2 of X it is stable till 0.6 of X, after which it increases. What reactors do you choose, how do you arrange them, and what is the highest conversion you can get for $10,000? Approximately what is the corresponding highest conversion with your arrangement of reactors? Scheme and sketch your reactor volumes.

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FAO (dm) 80 70 60- 50 40 30- 20- 10 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 X Cousin Bernie's Reactors Reactor Type Number CSTR CSTR PFR CSTR CSTR PFR 2 1 2 2 3 2 Volume (dm) 2 4 6 12 12 Cost $1,000 $2,000 $2,000 $4,000 $8.000 $6,000