On mean residence times in flow systems

A widely accepted result of residence time theory namely mean residence time is equal to the system volume divided by the flow rate was first offered by Danckwerts[l] and later extended by Buffham[21 and Gibilaro[3] to more general cases. Taking a two section system it is argued and experimentally demonstrated that the above theoretical result is not universal. A possible implication of this result is that even for a single section system the above result may not hold in all the cases. This is also supported by experimental data on a single section system.