Transport Phenomena - Mass Transfer Problem : Oxygen metabolism of a spherical bacterial aggregate Problem.

Consider a spherical aggregate of bacterial cells (assumed homogeneous) of radius R. Under certain circumstances, the oxygen metabolism rate of the bacterial cells is almost zero order with respect to oxygen concentration and may be approximated by an effective volumetric reaction rate rO ! "k#$$$. %he diffusion may be described by &ic'$s law with an effective pseudobinary diffusivity for oxygen in the bacterial medium DO "M. (eglect transient and convection effects because the oxygen solubility is very low in the system. )et # be the oxygen mass concentration at the aggregate surface. *t is then convenient to define the following dimensionless +uantities,

*f N is large enough, then an oxygen " free core may exist in the aggregate such that ! # for - #. %his re+uires that and d.d both be zero at ! #. a) /stablish the pseudo"steady"state oxygen concentration distribution (). b) 0erive an expression from which the dimensionless oxygen " free core radius # may be determined as a function of N. c) &or what values of N does an oxygen " free core exist1 d) 2'etch the oxygen concentration profile for different values of N.

2olution.
Clic' here for stepwise solution Clic' here for stepwise solution a) 2tep. 0ifferential e+uation from oxygen mass balance

2tep. 0ifferential e+uation from oxygen mass balance 3n neglecting the transient effects, an oxygen mass balance over a thin spherical shell in the bacterial aggregate gives (4)

where nO is the mass flux of oxygen and rO is the effective reaction rate for oxygen metabolism per unit volume. (eglecting the convective oxygen transport and describing the oxygen diffusion by &ic'$s law ( ), we get ( )

where DO "M is the effective pseudobinary diffusivity for oxygen in the bacterial medium and O is the mass concentration of oxygen. *n dimensionless form, the ordinary differential e+uation is (5)

where the dimensionless +uantities are defined as (6)

and # is the mass concentration of oxygen at the aggregate surface (r ! R). 2tep. 3xygen concentration profile by solving differential e+uation 2tep. 3xygen concentration profile by solving differential e+uation 3n integrating,

(7)

%he integration constants are determined using the boundary conditions, (8)

(9)

(:)

where # is the dimensionless oxygen " free core radius. (ote that if N is large enough, then an oxygen " free core may exist in the aggregate such that ! # for - #. 2ince the concentration and mass flux (i.e., concentration gradient) must be continuous, this re+uires that d.d ! # (as in ;C 4) and ! # (as in ;C ) at ! #. %he third boundary condition simply states that the mass concentration of oxygen O ! # at the aggregate surface at r ! R. 3n substituting the integration constants, the oxygen concentration profile is obtained as (<)

%he first form of the expression for above is obtained on substituting the integration constants from ;C 4 and ;C , whereas the second form results from substituting the integration constants from ;C 4 and ;C 5. (ote that ! # for - #. b) 2tep. /xpression for dimensionless oxygen " free core radius 2tep. /xpression for dimensionless oxygen " free core radius 3n eliminating C from /+s. 9 and :, we get

(4#)

%he above expression may be utilized to determine the dimensionless oxygen " free core radius # as a function of N as discussed below. c) Condition for existence of oxygen " free core Condition for existence of oxygen " free core 3n rearranging the above e+uation, we get (44)

&rom the above e+uation, it is readily observed that N goes from 8 to infinity when # goes from # to 4. %hus, the oxygen " free core exists only when N = 8. d) 2'etch of oxygen concentration profile and oxygen " free core radius 2'etch of oxygen concentration profile and oxygen " free core radius 3n eliminating N from /+s. < and 44, the dimensionless oxygen concentration profile is obtained as (4 )

&or a particular value of #, /+. 4 may be used to compute () and /+. 44 to calculate N in order to obtain the plot given below.

Figure. 3xygen concentration profiles for three different N values.

>elated Problems in %ransport Phenomena " ?ass %ransfer , %ransport Phenomena " ?ass %ransfer Problem , 0iffusion with homogeneous chemical reaction of a solid sphere in a li+uid
" @nother with in spherical coordinates with first order (rather than zero order) homogeneous chemical reaction