Results and Discussion

Mixing is one of the unit operation that employs the combination of two substance to produce
a homogenous one. (). This process is common to industrial industry wherein many products will not be
possible without this concept like soaps, powders, and other products.

When talking about mixing in chemical engineering view, tank reactors are present most of the
time. Tank reactors are materials used to mix two or more substances to produce homogenous products.
It can be classified as Continuously Stirred Tank Reactor (CSTR), Plug Flow Reactor (PFR), Packed Bed
Reactor (PBR), or Batch Reactor (BR) and each has different assumptions attributed on them. This
experiment used CSTR to homogenize and to determine the best flow rate for water and dye. In CSTR,
two assumptions are involved; it is assumed that the substances are homogenously mixed and the
condition is steady-state. As previously stated, the experiment uses dye as the material to be mixed with
water. Red dye was utilized together with water to demonstrate the mixing process.

To determine the best flow rate for the dye and water, steady-state condition must be
reached. According to , when a substance reached steady state, it accompanies constant volume and
homogenous temperature, pressure, and composition. This is also the reason why there is need to get the
constant composition of the outlet flow. The flow rate of the dye solution was determined first since it is
the constant flow rate in this set-up since it is supplied by the pump. To get the flow rate of this stream,
bucket method was used where a liquid was allowed to pass through a container with a specified target
volume and then time to reach that volume was noted. To determine easily the flow rate of the two
remaining stream, flow rate of the outlet stream was held constant and the other inlet stream flowrate
were adjusted to achieve steady-state condition using bucket method again. The best flow rate
combination obtained in the experiment was (insert here). Mathematically, the flowrate of the inlet
stream is equal to the flow rate of the outlet stream.

The dye used in this experiment is red dye which has a wavelength 622 to 780 nanometers.
The maximum wavelength of the dye was first determined. Spectrophotometers and other equipment
has their own respective error but in doing experiment one must make sure that errors will be lessen as
small as possible. Analysis in spectrophotometry should be done at the highest wavelength since in this
region there is only small error. A change or interference will only cause little fluctuations in the reading
because it is in the pick of the region. In the determination of the maximum wavelength, some problems
were encountered like fluctuating readings and other limitations of the instruments. To account for that,
data from other experiment were utilized. Table 4.3 shows the data for the determination of the
maximum wavelength of the dye.

Table 4.1. Wavelength with the maximum absorbance of red dye solution using 0.4g/L solution.

Wavelength(nm) Absorbance
516 3.413
517 3.444
518 3.420
519 3.417

The maximum wavelength was determined to be 517 nanometers. In this wavelength,

absorbance of different concentrations were determined to generate relationship between the
absorption and absorbance. Again, data for this came from other experiment. The results and plot were
recorded in Table 4.2 and Figure 2.1 respectively.

Table 4.2. Absorbance of varying concentration of solute at maximum wavelength.

Concentration(g/L) Absorbance(nm)
0.00 0
0.01 0.101
0.02 0.202
0.03 0.288
0.04 0.372
0.05 0.481
0.10 0.973

1.2

1 y = 9.678x - 0.0004
R = 0.9994
0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12
-0.2

Figure 2.1. Plot of absorbance vs. temperature.

As seen Figure 2.1, it is not very straight line but it can be assumed that absorbance is directly
proportional to concentration because of high value of R squared. Deviations from the relationship may
be due to the factors that affect absorptivity such as nature of absorbing species, wavelength, type of
solvent, and temperature. Others may be attributed to the assumptions of Beer Lamberts Law.

Spectrophotometry was also employed for the outlet stream of CSTR. 0.1 g/L ,0.2 g/L and 0.3
g/L of dye solution were used as the concentration of the inlet stream together with water as the other
inlet stream. The absorbance of the outlet stream was measured every 3 minutes until the concentration
become constant. Table 2.3 and 2.4 summarizes the concentration of the outlet stream at 3-minute
interval.
Table 3.3. Absorbance and concentration of outlet stream at inlet dye concentration of 0.1 g/L.

Time (minute) absorbance concentration

3 0.138 1.335164
6 0.208 2.012624
9 0.279 2.699762
12 0.302 2.922356
15 0.314 3.038492
18 0.333 3.222374
21 0.325 3.14495
24 0.353 3.415934
27 0.345 3.33851
30 0.352 3.406256

Table 3.4. Absorbance and concentration of outlet stream at inlet dye concentration of 0.2 g/L.

Time (minute) absorbance concentration

3 0.273 4.20953
6 0.435 5.264432
9 0.544 5.622518
12 0.581 5.03216
15 0.52 4.954736
18 0.512 4.819244
21 0.498 5.051516
24 0.522 5.8064
27 0.6 5.728976
30 0.592 -0.0004

Table 3.5. Absorbance and concentration of outlet stream at inlet dye concentration of 0.3 g/L.

Time (minute) absorbance concentration

3 0.422 4.083716
6 0.677 6.551606
9 0.775 7.50005
12 0.886 8.574308
15 0.922 8.922716
18 1.042 10.08408
21 1.057 10.22925
24 1.039 10.05504
27 0.988 9.561464
30 1.025 9.91955
7

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

Figure 2.2. Plot of concentration vs. time for 0.1 g/L dye solution.

3.5

2.5

1.5

0.5

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

Figure 2.3. Plot of concentration vs time for 0.2 g/L dye solution.
 12

10

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

Figure 2.4. Plot of concentration vs. time for 0.3 g/L dye solution.

The experiment conducted contains problems since high amount of inlet concentration was
used, resulting to not enough dye for the experiment. This set-up requires high volume of water since it
has to work for more than 1 hour. One probable solution is to decrease the concentration of the inlet dye.
In this manner, the amount of dye needed will be enough for the three trials. The experiment conducted
contains problems since high amount of inlet concentration was used, resulting to not enough dye for the
experiment.