Simbarashe Makunde 3309508

Wetted Wall Column Experiment 4

Summary
This experiment was carried out as part 4 of a series of experiments for the Fluids and Separation
Module. In this experiment we looked at Wetted Wall Columns because they are very important and
chemical and process engineering as they assist heavily in the study of mass transfer and industry
they are used for mass transfer that involves high rates of heat transfer.

The aim of the experiment was to form the variation of mass transfer coefficients of humidification
of air with air flowrate and the other aim was to arrive at a correlation between mass transfer
coefficient and Reynolds number for both laminar and turbulent flow

The experiment was carried at London South Bank University Petroleum Lab 127.The lab was
equipped with three vertical tubes with measurements of (i) 4.1 cm internal diameter, 74 cm high (ii)
2.1 cm internal diameter 64.5 cm high (iii) 4.1 cm internal diameter. To take our measurements a
rotameter was provided for measure the flow of air and thermometer were also provided for
measuring wet and dry bulb temperature.

Column 3: 0.041 m diameter

Table 1

Air Flow Water inlet Water Air inlet dry Air inlet wet Air outlet Air outlet
rate temperature outlet bulb bulb dry bulb wet bulb
rotameter °C temperature temperature temperature temperature temperature
(L/m) °C °C °C °C °C
80000 18.5 18 21 16 18.9 16
40000 18.5 18.1 21 16 18.9 17.6
10000 21 21.4 21 16 20.9 18.5
Column 2 :0.021 m diameter
Table 2

Air Flow Water inlet Water Air inlet dry Air inlet wet Air outlet Air outlet
rate temperature outlet bulb bulb dry bulb wet bulb
rotameter °C temperature temperature temperature temperature temperature
(L/m) °C °C °C °C °C
80000 18.5 17.3 21 16 18.5 15.6
40000 18.5 18 21 16 19 16.5
10000 18.5 20 21 16 20 18.9
Introduction
Wetted Wall Column plays a very significant role in process engineering in terms of designing
equipment and to obtain data to enable further study of important chemical processes such as gas
absorption, distillation and vaporization the data from wetted wall columns can also be used to
arrive at a correlation between components presents in different phases which exist in equilibrium
and most importantly the mass transfer co-efficient.

The process involves a vertical tube with a diameter to allow gas to flow through, the gas can flow
either way, either way upward or downward the tubes also includes a volatile liquid which flows
down in a thin film. The interfacial area is measured and kept contestant, this is the area between
the gas phase and thin film of liquid. The evaporation rate of liquid into the gas stream is very useful
because it is the one used to calculate the mass transfer coefficient for the gas phase. The rate of
mass transfer is heavily controlled by the conditions that are present at the interface between the
liquid film and the gas stream. It has been noted that most times the liquid film is laminar but the
flow of the gas stream could also be laminar or turbulent, this shows us that the mass transfer
coefficient is heavily depended on the type of flow for the gas phase.

The whole point for us doing the experiment was to get a variation of mass transfer coefficient for
humidification of air with air flowrate. The other objective was to discover the correlation between
mass transfer coefficient and Reynolds number for both flow laminar and turbulent.

Methods

Figure 1

http://enggyd.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/wetted-wall-column.html
Experimental Procedure and Observation
A column was used to circulate water through in a thin film making sure that the surface is
completed wetted, a single drop of teepol was used to help with wetting the full surface. The water
inlet and outlet temperature readings were taken. The inlet and outlet hygrometers were ensured to
be working after this low air flowrate were set at the rotameter and a set time of 15 min was given
to allow the temperature to reach a steady state before taking any readings, after the time period
readings of both wet and dry bulb temperature were taken down for both the inlet and outlet of air.
This process was repeated but now with higher airflow rates instead of low air flowrates used
previously and lastly a psychometric chart was used to convert these readings into air humidity.

During the experiments while taking it was noted that the diameter of the column will have an effect
on the air wet outlet temperature as the bigger the diameter of the column the outlet wet bulb
temperature will be slighter higher. As for the flowrate it does have an effect on the temperatures as
for high flow rates the out let temperature for water is slightly lower and the temperature for air
outlet wet temperature will decrease with higher airflow rate.

Results and Calculations

Table 3

Air Flow Water inlet Water Air inlet dry Air inlet wet Air outlet Air outlet
rate temperature outlet bulb bulb dry bulb wet bulb
rotameter K temperature temperature temperature temperature temperature
(m3/s) K K K K K
0.001333 292 291 294 289 292 289
0.0006667 292 291 294 289 292 291
0.0001667 294 294 294 289 292 292

Table 4

Air Flow Water inlet Water Air inlet dry Air inlet wet Air outlet Air outlet
rate temperature outlet bulb bulb dry bulb wet bulb
rotameter K temperature temperature temperature temperature temperature
(m3/s) K K K K K
0.001333 292 290 294 289 292 289
0.0006667 292 291 294 289 292 290
0.0001667 292 293 294 289 292 292

Table 5 Laminar Flow

Air Reynolds H1 H2 H3 H4 HmMass kg.d
Flowrate Number transfer
(m^3s^-1) coeff. (kg)
0.001333 0.12842424 0.0092 0.01 0.0146 0.013 0.0042 0.182044273 0.007463815
0.0006667 0.06423139 0.0092 0.01 0.0146 0.013 0.0042 0.102430732 0.00419966
0.0001667 0.01606025 0.0092 0.01 0.0146 0.013 0.0042 0.032417129 0.001329102
 Re Log Re log
-0.891352987 -1.181917549
-1.192252681 -1.482817243
-1.794247537 -2.084812099

Turbulent flow
Air Flowrate Reynolds H1 H2 H3 H4 Hm Mass transfer kg.d
Number coeff. (kg)
0.001333 0.065778271 0.0092 0.01 0.0146 0.013 0.0042 0.104474051 0.002193955
0.0006667 0.032899004 0.0092 0.01 0.0146 0.013 0.0042 0.058784346 0.001234471
0.0001667 0.008225985 0.0092 0.01 0.0146 0.013 0.0042 0.018603984 0.000390684

Table 6

Laminar vs Kg (d)
0.008

y = 0.0065x + 0.0127 0.007

0.006
0.005
kg (d)

0.004
0.003
0.002
0.001
0
-2 -1.5 -1 -0.5 0
Reynolds Number

Figure 2

Turbulent vs kg (d)
0.0025

y = 0.0019x + 0.0043 0.002

0.0015
kg (d)

0.001

0.0005

0
-2.5 -2 -1.5 -1 -0.5 0
Reynolds Number

Figure 3
Discussion of results
The results of mass transfer coefficient at different air flowrates are shown in table 5 and 6. It can be
seen that as the airflow rate decreased the mass transfer coefficient also decreased because with
started with a high flowrate of air so this works and agrees with the theory because usually you
would start with a low airflow rate and expect the mass transfer coefficient to increase as the air
flowrate is increase by in out experiment the mass transfer coefficient was noted to be decreasing
as the airflow rate was decreased .The other effect that was part of the experiment was the
diameter of the column that the fluids where flowing in and we noted that increasing the diameter
was found to decrease the mass transfer coefficient. Another key factor that played a part in the
mass transfer coefficient was the Reynolds number it was noted that for turbulent flow the mass
transfer was much higher this because in turbulent flow the fluid was undergoing irregular mixing
and fluctuations which is very different to laminar flow which had a much lower mass transfer
coefficient because the fluid was flowing in smooth layers. Another factor that made the turbulent
to have a much high mass transfer coefficient was because in this flow the speed of the fluid was
continuously undergoing changes in both magnitude and direction. As touched on briefly the laminar
flow had a lower mass transfer coefficient this is because the laminar flow made the fluid move in
parallel layers and the layers were flowing smoothly along and over each other and the viscosity of
the fluid dampened an instability and I think this played a major part in the low values for the mass
transfer coefficient in contrast to the turbulent values. Lastly because the velocity remained
constant for the laminar flow which lead to less mixing and interaction between the fluids and lead
to a lesser mass transfer coefficient.

Conclusions
This excitement allowed use to explore the importance of fluid flowrates on the mass transfer
coefficient which showed us the more fluid flowing the higher the mass transfer and we also looked
at the effect on Reynolds number on the mass transfer concluding that for the different flow types
laminar will also result in a lower mass transfer coefficient because of its principles and turbulent
will have a higher mass transfer coefficient because of its principles and last but not least we also
find out that the diameter of the column used had an effect on the flow type and mass transfer
coefficient .This was very important because mass transfer has a lot of applications in chemical and
process engineering such as dispersion of contaminants, drying and humidifying, separation and
doping in materials, vaporisation and condensation in a mixture.
References

1. http://enggyd.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/wetted-wall-column.html
2.