Consider a batch reactor in which an irreversible reaction is taking place You can set the reaction rate order The reactor has a dead time due to maintenance filling and emptying periods whose value expressed in hours you can also set The Demonstration plots conversion versus time and gives the position of optimal operation of the reactor shown by a green dot This point is found by maximizing the production of the reactor or alternatively by drawing the red line tangent to the conversion versus time curve Production versus time is given in a separate plot If the dead time is small short reaction times are advantageous even though 100 conversion is not reached In such cases production can be large As you increase the dead time longer reactor operations are more likely to obtain maximum production