Efficiency and utility of collocation methods in solving the performance equations of flow chemical reactors with axial dispersion

Abstract A computational approach, which involves a collocation method and a scheme for progressively selecting an increasing number of collocation points, is introduced to obtain an approximate solution of an arbitrary degree for a highly nonlinear unsymmetrical boundary value problem. The approach is straightforward and a general computer program which can be readily adapted to any type of reaction has been written to describe the performance of flow chemical reactors with axial dispersion. The computational approach does not employ any numerical integration scheme; therefore, this approach is free of the stability difficulties and time requirements associated with numerical integration. Results that are accurate to four significant digits can be obtained in a few seconds using an IBM 360/50 digital computer.