CHL 471: Tutorial Sheet 1

Background Questions on Mass Transfer Operations

1. In the McCabe-Thiele method, you get the number of ideal stages. Multiplied by overall column efficiency, you get the actual number of stages. What considerations would tell you about size of a stage? What additional considerations would tell you size (height) of the column? 2. Why have a structure like a distillation column, why not just have series of tanks, each being equilibrium flash drums? 3. A good part of the courses on Transport Phenomena and Heat and Mass Transfer were spent on learning about film theory and mass transfer coefficient. Where in the calculation of number of stages of the most important mass transfer equipment, viz., distillation towers (tray towers) and absorber columns (tray columns) does the mass transfer coefficient appear? If it does not appear, why not? 4. What is the significance of relative volatility in distillation? How does it change with system pressure? Should it approach or move away from unity? Limit your discussion to ideal binary mixture. 5. Discuss the merits and demerits of high pressure and vacuum distillation with respect to atmospheric pressure distillation in terms of ease of separation, number of stages, coolant temperature, fabrication costs and operating cost. 6. For a mass transfer operation to be practicable, equilibrium should be avoided. How do you justify this statement? 7. Do you obtain an operating line by a material balance or an energy balance? Is it straight or curved? Why is one prepared to make all sorts of assumptions to have a straight operating lines? Why do you have two operating lines in a distillation column while only one is needed in an absorption tower? When do you have more than two operating lines in a distillation column? 8. If neither L nor V changes appreciably from plate to plate (feed plate excluded), the operating line is straight. What assumption is needed for this statement to be true? 9. q is calculated as the heat required to bring the feed from its inlet condition to saturated vapour divided by heat required to bring it from saturated liquid state to saturated vapour state. Discuss different conditions of feed and the corresponding values of q with the help of a boiling-point (T-x-y) diagram for a binary mixture. 10. While q is calculated as the ratio of some heats, it can also be given a qualitative meaning. What is that? How does it help in the material balance on the feed plate? 11. What is the difference between a partial and total condenser in a distillation unit? It is said that a partial condenser can be deemed to be a reboiler in reverse. What do you have to say to that? Reboiler is subtracted from the total number of stages while the partial condenser is not? Why have the partial condenser then? 12. While the change in the density of gas or vapour phase from bottom to the top is generally small in an absorption tower, it can be substantial in a distillation column. What is the primary reason? 1

13. There are two operating lines one each for rectifying and stripping sections in a distillation column under normal operation. (a) How come there is only one operating line under total reflux? (b) Which of the two sections includes the feed plate? 14. As the reflux ratio is increased from the minimum, number of stages decreases continuously. Why should then the fixed cost for the column show a minimum when plotted against the reflux ratio? 15. If a mixture forms an azeotrope, what can be done to achieve the necessary separation by distillation? 16. If the solvent flow rate in an absorption tower is not dictated by the process requirements (the absorption tower may be only one of the many units in a big chemical process) and one is free to choose a suitable value, how is it done? 17. When the operating and equilibrium lines are both straight, the number of ideal stages in absorption in plate columns can be calculated by a formula based on the absorptionfactor method, and graphical construction can be avoided. (a) Give physical meaning to the various terms in the equation for the absorption-factor method? (b) What is the new form of this equation when the two lines are not only straight but parallel too? Interpret the numerator and denominators of this equation physically. 18. SO2 is to be removed from a given sulfur dioxide air mixture in an absorption tower fed with pure water to reduce its concentration in the outlet gas to an acceptable specified value to meet the anti-pollution requirements. The operating pressure could be 1.0 atm. or 5.0 atm. What possible advantage can one expect from a highpressure operation? 19. Plot the equilibrium curve of ammoniaair-water, in mole-fraction units, at 1.0 atm and 30 C, over the concentration range covered by the solubility chart given in McCabe and Smith. Repeat the calculation when the total pressure is 2.0 atm. Do you notice any difference between the two curves? Discuss its possible implications. 20. A gas-liquid operation is one in which a gas and a liquid phase are brought into contact for diffusional exchange. As one moves from humidification to absorption to distillation, complexity increases. Explain. 21. (a) Why is distillation the most important of all mass transfer operations? (c) What is that operating feature which makes it so? 25. (a) Most modern experimental data on packed towers are given in HTUs rather than in coefficients. Why? (b) What is the physical meaning of a transfer unit? 26. An increase in system pressure increases the number of stages in a distillation column, while they decrease in an absorption tower. Discuss. 27. When is distillation not a viable option for separating two components, or n-components, from a mixture? 28. In gas absorption one comes across solubility charts and equilibrium curves. Do they give the same information? If yes, why not have only one of them? 2

29. In gas absorption, you have less soluble and more soluble gases. Will the slope of the equilibrium curve for a less soluble gas be more or less than that for a more soluble gas? Explain qualitatively. 30. In a gas absorption process, certain assumptions are made about inlet gas mixture and liquid solvent. What are they? How do they help? 31. What is the Fenske equation and what is it useful for? 32. What are the essential differences between azeotropic and extractive distillation? 33. What is steam distillation and under what circumstances is it useful? What does steam do in such a distillation process?