Mass Transfer Operation

Chapter -1: Introduction

• Separation processes are the major class of processes in chemical process industries
to separate the mixture (gas, liquid, solid).
• Separation processes accounts 40-70% both capital and operating cost. (Some cases
over 90%).
• Separations may be solid-solid, solid-liquid, liquid-liquid, liquid-gas, gas-gas, gas-solid
or combination of all three.
• Some separation can be possible through purely mechanical mechanism and others
can be separated using external agent, thermal energy or any other physical
(physico-chemical) properties.
• Separation processes based on principles of mass transfer are known as mass
transfer operation.
• Basically, mass transfer is the transport of a species from one point to another in a single
phase or from one phase to another (generally difference in concentration or partial
pressure) known as driving force.
• The transfer of mass can be possible till the equilibrium is attend.
• Larger the driving force, indicates higher rate of transport and it’s a measure of how far
the system is from equilibrium.
• Mass transfer may be diffusional or convective.
• Diffusional mass transfer – occurs in absence of any macroscopic movement in the
system.
• Convective mass transfer – occurs with some sort of motion of component in the system.
• Mass transfer is the transport process like heat and momentum transfer. Thus, basic
governing laws of heat and momentum are applicable to mass transfer in different forms.
• Mass transfer occurs through direct contact of components.
Concentration
• The concentration of a species in a solution is generally expressed in terms of one of
the following:
• i = ‘mass concentration’ of the species i (i.e. mass of i per unit volume of the
solution or mixture), in kg/m3 (or lb/ft3)
•  = ‘total mass concentration’ of all the species in a solution, in kg/m3 (or lb/ft3); the
total mass concentration  is nothing but the density of the solution
• wi = i/ = mass fraction of the species i in a solution
• Ci = molar concentration of the species i in a solution, in kmol/m3 (or lbmol/ft3)
• C = total molar concentration of the solution, in kmol/m3 (or lbmol/ft3)
• xi = Ci/C = mole fraction of the species i in a solution.
• If there are n species in a solution, we have the following relations.

• In a gas mixture, the ‘concentration’ of a species is more commonly expressed in

terms of its partial pressure pi, or the mole fraction, yi = pi/P, where P is the total
pressure.
Velocity
• In a liquid solution or in a gaseous mixture, the various components or species move
with different velocities.
• By ‘velocity’ we mean both the molecular velocity in the microscopic scale and the bulk
motion. By bulk motion we mean the motion in a fluid caused by a pressure difference.
• A diffusing species moves with a velocity greater than the average velocity of the
medium.
• Two types of average velocities with respect to a ‘stationary observer’ are defined in
this connection.
Mass Average Velocity
• In an n-component mixture, the mass average velocity u is defined as
• where ui is the linear velocity of the ith species
in the concerned direction.
• The quantity ui does not mean the instantaneous
velocity of a molecule of the component.
• It is rather a statistical mean of the velocities of the
molecules of component i in the given direction.
Molar Average Velocity
• Similarly, the molar average velocity of a mixture, U, is defined as
• If the concentration of a solute in a solution is small,
the contribution of the motion of the solute molecules
to the average velocity also remains small.
• Thus, the average velocity becomes virtually equal
to the velocity of the medium or the solvent.
• Again, if the molecular weights of all the species are equal, the mass and the molar
average velocities are the same.
Mass Flux and Molar Flux
• In mass transfer operations, the term ‘flux’ means the net rate at which a species in
a solution passes through a unit area, which is normal to the direction of diffusion,
in unit time.
• It is expressed in kg/m2·s, kmol/m2·s, or lbmol/ft2·h
Figure – Role of separation processes in chemical industry
Table – Separation processes, separation agents and typical industrial applications
Problems
1. Calculate the mass concentration of 2 gram moles of sulpher dioxide to be
used to manufacture sulfuric acid in a 0.20 m3 of reactor.
2. A gas mixture (N2 = 5%, H2 = 15%, NH3 = 76% and Ar = 4%) flows through a
pipe, 25.4 mm in diameter, at 4.05 bar total pressure. If the velocities of the
respective components are 0.03 m/s, 0.035 m/s, 0.03 m/s and 0.02 m/s,
calculate the mass average, molar average and volume average velocities of
the mixture.
3. A mixture of noble gases [helium, argon, krypton, and xenon] is at a total
pressure of 100 kPa and a temperature of 200 K. If the mixture has equal
kmole fractions of each of the gases, determine: a) The composition of the
mixture in terms of mass fractions, b) Total molar concentration and c) The
mass density.
Data: Molecular weight of helium, argon, krypton, and xenon are 4, 40, 83.8
and 131.3 kg/mol respectively.