UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA

Department of Chemical & Materials Engineering

Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2G6
K. Nandakumar
Ph: 780-492-5810, Fax: 780-492-2881, e-mail: kumar.nandakumar@ualberta.ca

D. Monder
e-mail: dmonder@ualberta.ca

Ch E 416

Equilibrium Stage Processes

Assignment 5

Fall 2006
Due: October 20, 2006

Degrees of freedom
1. Do problem 5.25 in your textbook.
2. Verify ND for unit operations (c) and (g) in Table 5.4 in the textbook. How would ND
change if two feed streams were specified for unit operation (g)?

Counter-current absorption stages

Revisiting problem 2 from assignment 4, design a counter-current cascade of absorption

stages. You need to lower the NH3 content of a vapour mixture containing equal volumes of
NH3 and N2 by contacting it in a counter-current cascade with a liquid water stream. The
vapour flow rate is 14 m3 /s, and all stages are assummed to be at 20o C and 1 atm.
1. Can you reduce the mole ratio of NH3 to N2 in the vapour to 0.05 by using a water
stream flow rate of 10 litres/s?
2. What is the minimum water flow rate (in litres/s) needed to achieve this separation?
3. Find the number of stages required to accomplish the reduction in NH3 content if you
use 1.2 times the minimum water flow rate.
The equilibrium data is the data you used to solve problem 4.64, and is reproduced in Table
1.

Partial pressure of
NH3 in air (torr)
470.0
298.0
227.0
166.0
114.0
69.6
50.0
31.7
24.9
18.2
15.0
12.0

Grams of dissolved
NH3 /100 g of H2 O
40.0
30.0
25.0
20.0
15.0
10.0
7.5
5.0
4.0
3.0
2.5
2.0

Table 1: Equilibrium data for NH3 /air/water at 20o C