Material Balances

Lecture 4
Temperature, Pressure and
Flow Rate
 COURSE OUTLINE

Material Balances
• Introduction to Material Balance
• A general strategy for solving material balance problems
• Solving Material Balance problems for single units
without reaction
• The chemical reaction equation and stoichiometry
• Material Balances for processes involving reaction
• Material Balance problems involving multiple units
• Recycle, Bypass and Purge
 After completion of this learning unit you
should be able to
Do the following:
• Material balance calculations in both single and multiple
stage systems.
• Material balance calculations involving chemical
reactions.
• Material balance calculations with recycle and bypass
streams.
• Material balance calculations involving chemical
reactions in recycle systems.
 Material Balances
Introduction to Material Balances
Read page 97 – 115 (133 – 155)
You need to understand and know all the definitions on pages 104 to 108
Do Self-Assessment Test page 116 – 119 (155)
Do Problems 3.1.1 – 3.1.16 page 143 – 148 (6.1 – 6.24 on 158 – 165)

Strategy for solving Material Balance problems

Read page 119 – 139 (166 – 187)
Do Self-Assessment Test page 139 - 141 (188 – 190)
Do Problems 3.2.1 – 3.2.13 page 149 – 152 (7.1 – 7.16 on 191 – 195)
Solving Material Balance problems for Single Units without Reactions
Read page 153 – 173 (196 – 215)
Do Self-Assessment Test page 173 - 174 (215 – 217)
Do Problems 4.1.1 – 4.1.21 page 175 – 180 (8.1 – 8.27 on 218 – 224)
 Introduction to Material Balances

• Exact accounting of all the materials that enter, leave

and accumulate or deplete within a process
• All chemical engineering problems start by “closing”
the material and energy balance i.e. applying
balance equations to determine flows and
compositions
• Based on the “conservation of mass and energy”
• Can be applied to processes physical and chemical
processes
Introduction to Material Balances
 PROCESS CARACTERISTICS

System Boundary
• The section of the process (portion or whole) that is
considered for analyses

Closed
• Material does not enter or leave the system. No
material crosses the system boundary.

Open
• Material crosses the system boundary. (Flow system)
 PROCESS CARACTERISTICS:
PROCESS OPERATION
Batch
• Reactants fed into the process, processed and
discharged at the end

Semi-batch
• Feed added continuously, product removed once
(“fedbatch”) or all reactants fed at once and products
continuously removed

Continuous
• Feed continuously added and product continuously
withdrawn
 PROCESS CARACTERISTICS:
PROCESS VARIATION

Steady-state
• Value of process variables does not change with
time (Also define - pseudo-steady-state or quasi-steady-
state)
• Modeled with algebraic equations

Un-steady-state or transient
• Value of process variables change with time
• Modeled with differential equations
 GENERAL BALANCE EQUATION

•Based on the “conservation of mass” not volume or moles

Each year 50 000 people move into a city, 30

000 move out, 20 000 are born and 10 000 die.
Write a balance on the population of the city.

Do examples 3.1 to 3.5

Introduction to Material Balances
General Balance Equation

General Balance
for Material Balances
Elementary mass balances
in Chemical Engineering
A General strategy for solving Material Balance
Problems
• Read and understand the problem statement
• Draw a sketch of the process and specify the system boundary
• Place labels for unknown variables and values for known variables
on the sketch.
• Obtain any missing needed data
• Choose a basis
• Determine the number of unknowns
• Determine the number of independent equations, and carry out a
degree of freedom analysis
• Write down the equations to be solved
• Solve the equations and calculate the quantities asked for
• Check your answer(s).
 PROCESS REPRESENTATION:
FLOWCHARTING

• Arrows for process streams

• Capital letters for stream flow: mass or moles
• Shapes for process unit
 STREAM LABELS

• Use capital letter of stream name to

Feed
identify stream
F = 100kg/s • Use lower case x for mass/mole
fraction
• For mole/mass fraction combine
capital letter of stream and
component as labels
 EXAMPLE

3000 kg of a 10% slurry of calcium hydroxide in water is to be

prepared by diluting a 30% slurry. Draw an annotated diagram.
The percentages are by weight.
 MASS BALANCE EQUATIONS

• Two types of balance equations can be written: total and

component

Total:
Mass of streams entering balance boundary = Mass of streams leaving
Component:
Mass of component entering balance boundary = Mass of component
leaving
DEGREES OF FREEDOM

 f is the number of degrees of

freedom. It will equal zero when a
problem is properly specified
 V is the number of independent
variables
 E is the number of independent
equations
 S is the number of specifications
imposed on the variables
DEGREES OF FREEDOM

Introduction to Degrees of Freedom

 DEGREES OF FREEDOM

Example: Calculate the degrees of freedom for the problem below

 EXAMPLE
3000 kg of a 10% slurry of calcium hydroxide in water is to be
prepared by diluting a 30% slurry. Calculate the quantities
required. The percentages are by weight.

Do examples 3.6 to 3.9

 EXAMPLE

General Mass Balance on a Single Tank

 EXAMPLE

Performing a material
balance on a single unit
 EXAMPLE

Mass Balances in Steady

State Chemical Engineering
 EXAMPLE

Multiple Unit Material Balance

Degree of Freedom Analysis