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Chemical Engineering vocabulary · Reactions and Reactors

Conversion

Meaning in chemical engineering, with examples

/kənˈvɜːrʒən/nounCore term

In chemical engineering, conversion means: The fraction of a reactant that has reacted, usually given as a percentage of the amount fed to the reactor.

In Turkish: dönüşüm, dönüşüm oranı

How it is used

Used in reactor design, lab reports and plant monitoring. Engineers talk about per-pass conversion and overall conversion, and say conversion is high, low, increasing or limited by equilibrium.

Example sentences

  1. Per-pass conversion is only 15%, so the unreacted gas is recycled to the reactor.

  2. Higher temperature gives higher conversion but lower selectivity.

Common collocations

  • per-pass conversion
  • overall conversion
  • equilibrium conversion
  • conversion rate
  • achieve high conversion
  • yieldThe amount of desired product you actually get, usually shown as a percentage of the amount you could get in theory from the raw material fed.
  • selectivityHow much of the reacted feed turns into the desired product rather than into unwanted by-products, usually given as a percentage.
  • reaction rateHow fast reactants are used up or products are formed, usually given as moles per unit volume per unit time. It depends on temperature, concentration and catalyst.
  • recycle streamA stream that takes unreacted material or a process fluid from a later point in the process and sends it back to an earlier point, so that it is not wasted.
  • residence timeThe average time that material spends inside a vessel or reactor, found for a simple case by dividing the volume by the volumetric flow rate.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Reactions and Reactors

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