Chemical and Biological Reaction Engineering
MIT OpenCourseWare offers this chemical engineering course covering reaction rate, stoichiometry, and equilibrium as applied to both chemical and biological reacting systems. Students learn to derive rate expressions from reaction mechanisms using equilibrium or steady state assumptions, then apply chemical kinetics, transport phenomena, and mass and energy balances to design reactors. Topics include chemical and biochemical pathways, enzymatic and cell growth kinetics, and batch, plug flow, and well-stirred reactor design for both chemical reactions and cultivations of microorganisms and mammalian cells. The course also covers heterogeneous and enzymatic catalysis and heat and mass transport in reactors, including diffusion to and within catalyst particles, cells, or immobilized enzymes. Materials include lecture notes, problem sets, and exams from MIT's course, free to access under a Creative Commons license with no certificate offered.