Scribd
Upload
115 views

Diffusion in A Three-Component Gas System

This document discusses diffusion in a three-component gas system of water evaporating into air, which is treated as a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen. The conservation of mass leads to expressions for the molar fluxes of the three species. Since nitrogen and oxygen are not moving, their molar fluxes are zero. Equations are developed relating the molar flux of water vapor to the mole fractions of the components using diffusion coefficients. These equations can be integrated and used with boundary conditions to determine the molar flux and mole fraction profiles of the components in the diffusion column.

Uploaded by

patel smith
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
115 views

Diffusion in A Three-Component Gas System

This document discusses diffusion in a three-component gas system of water evaporating into air, which is treated as a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen. The conservation of mass leads to expressions for the molar fluxes of the three species. Since nitrogen and oxygen are not moving, their molar fluxes are zero. Equations are developed relating the molar flux of water vapor to the mole fractions of the components using diffusion coefficients. These equations can be integrated and used with boundary conditions to determine the molar flux and mole fraction profiles of the components in the diffusion column.

Uploaded by

patel smith
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

DIFFUSION IN A THREE-COMPONENT GAS SYSTEM

The systems we have discussed have been binary systems, or ones that could be
approximated as two-component systems. To illustrate the setting up of multi-
component diffusion problems for gases, we rework the initial evaporation problem of
18.2 when liquid water (species 1) is evaporating into air, regarded as a binary
mixture of nitrogen (2) and oxygen (3) at 1 atrn and 352K. We take the air-water
interface to be at z = 0 and the top end of the diffusion tube to be at z = L. We
consider the vapour pressure of water to be known, so that x1 is known at z =0 (that
is, x10= 341/760 = 0.449), and the mole fractions of all three gases are known at z=
L: x1L= 0.10, x2L = 0.75, x3L = 0.15.
The diffusion tube has a length L = 11.2 cm.
The conservation of mass leads, as in 18.2, to the following expressions:

-1
From this it may be concluded that the molar fluxes of the three species are all
constants at steady state. Since species 2 and 3 are not moving, we conclude that N2z
and N3z are both zero.
Next we need the expressions for the molar fluxes from Eq. 17.9-1. Since x1 + x2 +x3
= 1, we need only two of the three available equations, and we select the equations for
species 2 and 3. Since N2z= 0 and N3z= 0, these equations simplify considerably:

-2,3
Note that the diffusivity D23 does not appear here, because there is no relative motion
of species 2 and 3. These equations can be integrated from an arbitrary height zto
the top of the tube at L, to give for constant cDa

-4,5
Integration then gives

-6,7
and the mole fraction profile of water vapor in the diffusion column will be

-8
When we apply the boundary condition at z=0 ,we get
-9
which is a transcendental equation for N1z
According to Reid, Prausnitz, and poling, D12 = 0.364 cm2/s and D13 = 0.357 cm2/s at
352K and 1 atm. At these conditions c = 3.46 X 10-5 g-moles/cm3. To get a quick
solution to Eq -9, we take both diffusivities to be equal2 to 0.36 cm2/s. Then we get

-10
-7
from which we find that N1z = 5.523 X 10 gmoles/cm s. This can be used as a first
2

guess in solving Eq. 9 more exactly, if desired. Then the entire profiles can be
calculated from Eqs. 6 to 8.

You might also like