This article deals with output regulation of an adiabatic tubular reactor by virtue of a single manipulated input. The design procedure is divided by two stages. First, the feasible operating condition needs to be determined and computer-assisted design can be used to perform model reduction. Based on the established finite difference-based nonlinear model and the available geometric control technique, the specified linearization framework is addressed. Second, the re-corrected setpoint design is proposed such that the effect of process deadtime can be reduced and asymptotic output regulation achieved. When only two spatial outputs in the process can be measured, the developed observer-based nonlinear controller can be successfully implemented. A comparison of results obtained using the conventional linear control and the proposed control scheme is given.