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Lecture 1 - Diffusion Mass Transfer

Diffusion mass transfer involves the movement of molecules or atoms from areas of higher concentration to lower concentration, similar to heat transfer by conduction. Fick's law of diffusion describes the flux of a chemical species due to diffusion. Mass transfer in a medium involves both diffusive and advective flux. Boundary conditions, such as discontinuous concentrations at interfaces or catalytic surface reactions, are important considerations for mass transfer problems.

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Urgen Tamang
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77 views

Lecture 1 - Diffusion Mass Transfer

Diffusion mass transfer involves the movement of molecules or atoms from areas of higher concentration to lower concentration, similar to heat transfer by conduction. Fick's law of diffusion describes the flux of a chemical species due to diffusion. Mass transfer in a medium involves both diffusive and advective flux. Boundary conditions, such as discontinuous concentrations at interfaces or catalytic surface reactions, are important considerations for mass transfer problems.

Uploaded by

Urgen Tamang
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Diffusion Mass Transfer

What is diffusion mass transfer ?


• Mass in transit due to species concentration difference in a mixture
• Similar to heat transfer by conduction
• Examples: perfume spray in one corner of room, adding a drop of dye
to water
Important notations
ri mass density kg/m3
Ci molar concentration, kmol/m3
• PV = nRuT
• PV = (m/M)*Ru*T
• P*(V/m) = (Ru/M)*T
• P*v = Ri*T
• P*(1/rho) = Ri*T
• P = rho*Ri*T
Fick’s law of diffusion
• Same as Fourier’s law for heat conduction

• What are the units of jA and JA* ?

• DAB ~ p-1T3/2
Mass transfer in nonstationary media
• Diffusion is similar to heat transfer by conduction

• Unlike conduction, diffusion involves movement of molecules or


atoms from one location to another

• This molecular scale motion results in bulk motion

• Total (Absolute) flux (nA’’ or NA”)of a species will involve both diffusive
and advective components
Mass transfer in nonstationary media
• Consider a binary mixture of species A and B

• For binary mixtures


Evaporation in a column
• Consider diffusion in binary gas
mixture of A and B
• Consider species B cannot be
absorbed into liquid A, so NB,x’’ = 0
within the control volume
• How is this possible ?
Evaporation in a column

How ???
Stationary medium approximation
• Here, we neglect the advective contribution to mass transfer
• E.g. diffusion of a dilute gas within a stagnant liquid or diffusion of
water vapor through a solid wall
• q’’ = - k del T
• q’’ = -k * dT/dx
• q’’ = -k * (T1 –T2)/L
Conservation of species for a stationary
medium
• Conservation of species just like conservation of energy for heat
transfer
• For a control volume
Mass in – Mass out + Mass gen. – Mass cons. = Mass accumulation
Mass diffusion equation
Stationary media with specified surface
concentration
• For 1D steady state, with no reaction,
the diffusion equation reduces to
Boundary conditions
Discontinuous concentrations at interfaces
• Unlike temperature, species concentrations are typically
discontinuous at the interface
• Relationships exist that relate the concentrations on either side of the
temperature
Catalytic surface reactions
• Heterogeneous chemical reactions
can be considered a surface
phenomenon
• Reactions can be treated as a
boundary condition

Start from the mass diffusion equation


Catalytic surface reactions
Boundary Conditions

Assuming first order reaction

Concentration distribution
Mass diffusion with homogeneous chemical
reaction

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