NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

FACULTY OF INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGY

BACHELOR OF ENGINEERING (HONS) DEGREE
TCE 1101 Chemical Engineering Calculations Tutorial 3
Material Balances with no chemical reaction

1. Streptomycin is used as an antibiotic to fight bacterial diseases in humans as well as to

control bacteria, fungi, and algae in crops. First an inoculate is prepared by placing spores
of strains of Streptomyces griseus in a medium to establish a culture with a high biomass.
The culture is then introduced into a fermentation tank which operates at 28°C and a pH of
about 7.8 with the nutrients of glucose (the carbon source) and soybean meal (the nitrogen
source). High agitation and aeration are needed. After fermentation, the biomass is
separated from the liquid, and Streptomycin is recovered by adsorption on activated
charcoal followed by extraction with an organic solvent in a continuous extraction process.
If we ignore the details of the process and just consider the overall extraction process,
Figure 1 shows the net result.

Figure 1
Determine the mass fraction of Streptomycin in the exit organic solvent based on the data
in Figure 1, assuming that no water exits with the solvent and no solvent exits with the
aqueous solution. Assume that the density of the aqueous solution is 1 g/cm3 and the
density of the organic solvent is 0.6 g/cm3.

2. A new manufacturer of ethyl alcohol—ethanol, denoted as EtOH—for gasohol is having a

bit of difficulty with a distillation column. The process is shown in Figure 2. They think
too much alcohol is lost in the bottoms (waste). Calculate the composition of the bottoms
and the mass of the alcohol lost in the bottoms based on the data shown in Figure 2 that

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 were collected in 1 hr of operation. Finally, determine the percentage of the EtOH entering
the column that is lost in the waste stream.

3. Hemodialysis is the most common method used to treat advanced and permanent kidney
failure. When your kidneys fail, harmful wastes build up in your body, your blood pressure
may rise, and your body may retain excess fluid and may not make enough red blood cells.
In hemodialysis, your blood flows through a device with a special filter that removes urea
and preserves the water balance and the serum proteins in the blood.
The dialyzer itself (refer to Figure E4.7) is a large canister containing thousands of small
fibers through which the blood passes.

Dialysis solution, the cleansing solution, is pumped around these fibers. The fibers allow
wastes and extra fluids to pass from your blood into the solution that carries them away.
This example focuses on the plasma components in streams S (solvent) and B (blood):
water, uric acid (UR), creatinine (CR), urea (U), P, K, and Na. You can ignore the initial

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 filling of the dialyzer because the treatment lasts for an interval of two or three hours. Given
the measurements obtained from one treatment as shown in Figure E4.7b, calculate the
grams per liter of each component of the plasma in the outlet solution.

4. A chromatographic column can be used to separate two or more compounds. Figure E4.5a
portrays the main features of such a column, which can be operated in either a horizontal
or a vertical position. Figure 4 illustrates how the bands of separation occur as the injected
mixture of compounds passes through the column. Note that the columns in Figure E4.5b
indicate the distribution of the sample at different times, with time increasing from the left
to the right. The component that is more strongly absorbed on the packing in the column
falls behind the more weakly adsorbed. Some compounds with appropriate packing in a
sufficiently long column can be completely separated. A typical small-scale laboratory
column might be 5 cm in diameter and 10 cm long with a filled fraction of packing of 0.62
of the column volume. For bio materials in laboratories the columns are much smaller.

5. In the combustion of heptane with oxygen, CO2 is produced. Assume that you want to
produce 500 kg of dry ice per hour, and that 50% of the CO2 can be converted into dry ice,
as shown in Figure 5. How many kilograms of heptane must be burned per hour?

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6. A limestone analysis:
CaCO3 92.89%
MgCO3 5.41%
Unreactive 1.70%
By heating the limestone, you recover oxides that together are known as lime.
a. How many pounds of calcium oxide can be made from 1 ton of this limestone?
b. How many pounds of CO2 can be recovered per pound of limestone?
c. How many pounds of limestone are needed to make 1 ton of lime?

7. a. NADH (nicotinamid adenine dinucleotide) supplies hydrogen in living cells for

biosynthesis reactions such as
CO2 + 4H → CH2O + H2O
If you saturate 1 L of deaerated water with CO2 gas at 20ºC (the solubility is 1.81 g CO2/L)
and add enough NADH to provide 0.057 g of H into a bioreactor used to imitate the
reactions in cells, and obtain 0.7 g of CH2O, what is the extent of reaction for this reaction?
Use the extent of reaction to determine the number of grams of CO2 left in solution.
What is the maximum number of grams of CH2O that can be produced?
What is the limiting reactant?
What is the excess reactant?

8. The two reactions of interest for this example are

Cl2(g) + C3H6(g) C3H5Cl(g) + HCl(g)
Cl2(g) + C3H6(g) C3H6Cl2(g)
C3H6 is propene (MW = 42.08).
C3H5Cl is allyl chloride (3-chloropropene) (MW = 76.53).
C3H6Cl2 is propylene chloride (1,2-dichloropropane) (MW = 112.99).
The species recovered after the reaction takes place for some time are listed in Table 8
Species gmol

Cl2 141.0

C3H6 651.0

C3H5Cl 4.6
C3H6Cl2 24.5

HCl 4.6

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 Based on the product distribution in Table 8, assuming that the feed consisted only of Cl2
and C3H6, calculate the following:
a. How much Cl2 and C3H6 were fed to the reactor in gram moles?
b. What was the limiting reactant?
c. What was the excess reactant?
d. What was the fraction conversion of C3H6 to C3H5Cl?
e. What was the selectivity of C3H5Cl relative to C3H6 Cl2?
f. What was the yield of C3H5Cl expressed in grams of C3H5Cl to the grams of C3H6 fed to
the reactor?
g. What was the extent of reaction of Reactions (1) and (2)?

9. A Fuel Cell in Every Car” is the headline of an article in Chemical and Engineering News
(March 5, 2001, p. 19). In essence, a fuel cell is an open system into which fuel and air are
fed, and out of which come electricity and waste products. Figure E5.13 is a sketch of a
fuel cell in which a continuous flow of methane (CH4) and air (O2 plus N2) produces
electricity plus CO2 and H2O. Special membranes and catalysts are needed to promote the
oxidation of the CH4. Calculate the composition of the products in P.

10. A local utility burns coal having the following composition on a dry basis. (Note that the
coal analysis below is a convenient one for our calculations but is not necessarily the only

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 type of analysis that is reported for coal. Some analyses contain much less information
about each element.)

Moisture (H2O) in the fuel was 3.90%, and the air on the average contained 0.0048 lb
H2O/lb dry air. The refuse showed 14.0% unburned coal, with the remainder being ash.
The unburned coal in the refuse can be assumed to be of the same composition as the coal
that serves as fuel.
What is the percent excess air used for this process as shown in Figure 9.

11. Explain how the extent of reaction is related to the fraction conversion of the limiting
reactant.
12. What is the meaning of stack gas, Orsat analysis, Dry basis, wet basis, theoretical air (O2)
and excess air (O2).