The concept of a residence time distribution is critically important for describing the nonideality in the flow behavior of continuous reactors. A dimensionless number called Peclet number (Pe) is...

The concept of a residence time distribution is critically important for describing the nonideality in the flow behavior of continuous reactors. A dimensionless number called Peclet number (Pe) is often used for the mathematical description of the nonideality. The mean residence time, , and the variance, σ 2 , in the residence time distribution are dependent on the Peclet number as follows:

The mean residence time and the standard deviation (σ) for a vessel were found to be 5·10 5 s and 305 s, respectively. What is the Peclet number? What would be the error in Pe if the second term in the bracket is neglected?