Things were going smoothly at the Breaux Bridge Drug Co. pilot plant during the midnight to 8.a.m. shift until Therese Lagniappe, the reactor operator, let the run instruction sheet get too close to the Coleman stove that was being used to heat water to prepare Lagniappe’s bihourly cup of Community Coffee. What followed ended in a total loss of the run sheet, the coffee, and a substantial portion of the novel Lagniappe was writing.

Remembering the less than enthusiastic reaction she got the last time she telephoned her supervisor in the middle of the night, Lagniappe decided to rely on her memory of the required flow-rate settings. The two liquids being fed to a stirred-tank reactor were circulostoic acid (CSA: MW = 75. SG = 0.90) and flubitol (FB: MW = 90, SG = 0.75). The product from the system was a popular over-the-counter drug that simultaneously cures high blood pressure and clumsiness. The molar ratio of the two feed streams had to be between 1.05 and 1.10 mol CSA/mol FB to keep the contents of the reactor from forming a solid plug. At the time of the accident, the flow rate of CSA was 45.8L/min. Lagniappe set the flow of flubitol to the value she thought had been in the run sheet: 55.2L/min was she right? If not, how would she have been likely to learn of her mistake? (Note: The reactor was stainless steel, so she could not see the contents).