CONCENTRATION DISTRIBUTIONS IN

SOLIDS AND IN LAMINAR FLOW

Case Study
DIFFUSION INTO A FALLING LIQUID
FILM (GAS ABSORPTION)

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 Fist step converting physical system into
mathematical model
 When this evaporating system attains a steady state,
there is a net motion of A away from the interface
and the species B is stationary.
 Hence the molar flux of A is given by:

(2)
 A steady-state mass balance (in molar units) over an
increment Δz of the column states that the amount of
A entering at plane z equals the amount of A leaving
at plane z + Δz:
(3)
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 Further derivation:

 Here S is the cross-sectional area of the column.

Division by SΔz and taking the limit as Δz0 gives:

(4)

 Substitution of Eq. (2) into Eq. (4) gives:

(5)

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 How c and DAB are constants?

 For an ideal gas mixture the equation of state is

p=cRT, so that at constant temperature and pressure
c must be a constant.
 Furthermore, for gases DAB is very nearly independent
of the composition.
 Therefore, can be moved to the left of the derivative
operator to get

(6)

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 Integrations . . . . (6)

 Eq.(6) is a second-order differential equation for the

concentration profile expressed as mole fraction of A.
 Integration with respect to z give:

(7)
 A second integration then gives
(8)

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 Boundary Conditions
 If we replace C1 by -In K1 and C2 by -In K2 ,Eq.(8)
becomes:
(9)
 The two constants of integration, K1 and K2 may then
be determined from the boundary conditions
(10)
(11)
 When the constants have been obtained, we get finally

(12)

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System . . . . . in text
 This is an illustration of forced-convection mass
transfer.
 We consider the absorption of gas A by a laminar
falling film of liquid B.
 The material A is only slightly soluble in B, so that the
viscosity of the liquid is unaffected.
 We shall make the further restriction that the
diffusion takes place so slowly in the liquid film that
A will not "penetrate" very far into the film-that is,
that the penetration distance will be small in
comparison with the film thickness.

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 System . . . . in Picture

Absorption of A into a
falling film of liquid B.

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System . . . . in Mathematics
 Let us now set up the differential equations
describing the diffusion process.
 First, we have to solve the momentum transfer
problem to obtain the velocity profile vz(x) for the
film.
 This has already been worked out in earlier
Presentation, in the absence of mass transfer at the
fluid surface, and we know that the result is given as
Eq. (13) provided that end effects are neglected.

(13)

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System . . . . in Mathematics
 Next we have to establish a mass balance on
component A.
 We note that cA will be changing with both x and z.
 Hence, as the element of volume for the mass
balance, we select the volume formed by the
intersection of a slab of thickness Δz with a slab of
thickness Δx.
 Then the mass balance on A over this segment of a
film of width W becomes
(14)

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System . . . . in Mathematics
 Dividing by W Δx Δz and performing the usual
limiting process as the volume element becomes
infinitesimally small, we get

(15)

 Now we know that…

(16)

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System . . . . in Mathematics
 Into Eq. (15) we now insert the expression for NAz and
NAx making appropriate simplifications of Eq. (16).
 For the molar flux in the z direction, we write,
assuming constant c.

(17)

 We discard the dashed-underlined term, since the

transport of A in the z direction will be primarily by
convection.

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System . . . . in Mathematics
 The molar flux in the x direction is:

(18)

 Here we neglect the dashed-underlined term because

in the x direction A moves predominantly by
diffusion, there being almost no convective transport
normal to the wall on account of the very slight
solubility of A in B.

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System . . . . in Mathematics
 Putting the values of NAz from Eq. (17) and NAx from
Eq. (18) in Eq. (15), we get

(19)

 Finally, insertion of Eq. (13) for the velocity

distribution gives:
(20)

 as the differential equation for cA(x,z).

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System . . . . in Mathematics
 Eq. (20) is to be solved with the following boundary
conditions

(21)

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