the typical reactor

While it is impossible to give an example of every potential reactor and every needed circumstance for a controlled chemical reaction in industry, all reactors have common traits.  A typical reactor is designed to control a reaction through the application of energy and information.

 

In some cases, this control is towards speeding or intensifying a reaction.  An analogy of this is cooking on a stove.  A heated pot adds thermal energy to food to cause a change: cooking.  In every industry, there is a reactor at work.  Most reactors only control one or two energies in a single vessel.   With only one or two forms of energy under control, the other energies are, by definition, out of control.  The result is inefficiency and wasted expense; this is the normal paradigm in most industries.