Absorption with chemical reaction reactions

Penetration theoiy often is used in analyzing absorption with chemical reaction because it makes no assumption about the depths of penetration of the various reacting species, and it gives a more accurate result when the diffusion coefficients of the reacting species are not equal. When the reaction process is veiy complex, however, penetration theoiy is more difficult to use than film theory, and the latter method normally is preferred. 

A necessary prerequisite to understanding the subject of absorption with chemical reaction is the development of a thorough understanding of the principles involved in physical absorption, as discussed earlier in this section and in Section 5. There are a number of excellent references the subject, such as the book by Danckwerts Gas-Liquid Reactions, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1970) and Astarita et al. Gas Treating with Chemical Solvents, Wiley, New York, 1983). 

F. Gas Absorption with Chemical Reaction—Time-Dependent Bulk Concentration. 346... 

Dynantics of Heat Exchangers, Simple Batch Extraction, Multi-Solute Batch Extraction, Multistage Countercurrent Ctiscade, Extraction Cascade with Backmixing, Countercurrent Extraction Cascade with Reaction, Absorption with Chemical Reaction, Membrane Transfer Processes... 

Only physical absorption from dilute gases has been considered in this section. For a discussion of absorption from concentrated gases and absorption with chemical reaction, the reader should refer to Volume 2, or to the book by Treybal (1980). If the inlet gas concentration is not too high, the equations for dilute systems can be used by dividing the operating line up into two or three straight sections. 

Figure 12.10. Concentration profile for absorption with chemical reaction...

Figure 6.3 Gas absorption with chemical reaction (a) rapid second-order reaction and (b) slow pseudo first-order reaction.

The influence of pressure on the mass transfer in a countercurrent packed column has been scarcely investigated to date. The only systematic experimental work has been made by the Research Group of the INSA Lyon (F) with Professor M. Otterbein el al. These authors [8, 9] studied the influence of the total pressure (up to 15 bar) on the gas-liquid interfacial area, a, and on the volumetric mass-transfer coefficient in the liquid phase, kia, in a countercurrent packed column. The method of gas-liquid absorption with chemical reaction was applied with different chemical systems. The results showed the increase of the interfacial area with increasing pressure, at constant gas-and liquid velocities. The same trend was observed for the variation of the volumetric liquid mass-transfer coefficient. The effect of pressure on kia was probably due to the influence of pressure on the interfacial area, a. In fact, by observing the ratio, kia/a, it can be seen that the liquid-side mass-transfer coefficient, kL, is independent of pressure. 

In a number of important industrial processes, it is necessary to carry out a reaction between a gas and a liquid. Usually the object is to make a particular product, for example, a chlorinated hydrocarbon such as chlorobenzene by the re action of gaseous chlorine with liquid benzene. Sometimes the liquid is simply the reaction medium, perhaps containing a catalyst, and all the reactants and products are gaseous. In other cases the main aim is to separate a constituent such as C02 from a gas mixture although pure water could be used to remove CO2, a solution of caustic soda, potassium carbonate or ethanolamine has the advantages of increasing both the absorption capacity of the liquid and the rate of absorption. The subject of gas-liquid reactor design thus really includes absorption with chemical reaction which is discussed in Volume 2, Chapter 12. 

Multiplicity or bifurcation behavior was found to occur in many other systems such as distillation [30], absorption with chemical reaction [31], polymerization of olefins in fluidized beds [32], char combustion [33, 34], the heating of wires [35] and in a number of processes used for manufacturing and processing electronic components [36, 37]. 

Characterization of a two phase impinging jets absorber, Part II Absorption with chemical reaction of carbon dioxide in NaOH solution. Chemical Engineering Science, 45 1281-1287. 

Stichlmair and Fair11 and Rose8 are textbooks devoted entirely to design and operation of distillation columns, Ruthven12 considers absorption and Astarita et alP absorption with chemical reaction. Ho14 is a handbook for membrane separations and Guiochon15 considers chromatographic separations. 

Many processes of gas absorption with chemical reaction are set up at high pressures, result of technical and/or economical requirements. That is, for example, processes of hydrocracking and hydrorefining of heavy oils and processes of oxydation of liquid effluents. However, if many chemical systems are found to determine the mass transfer parameters in an industrial reactor at atmospheric pressure by using the chemical method, they become scarce at elevated pressures. Several physical and chemical methods have been proposed chemical methods present some severe drawbacks, since one has to replace the gas-liquid system of interest by another one, presenting different physical properties (specially a different coalescence behaviour). 

Biofilters are chemically enhanced absorbers, and therefore mass transfer limited (see Absorption with Chemical Reaction in Sec. 14). The magnitudes for the Hatta [= Damkohler II = (Thiele modulus)2] numbers are quite low, perhaps below 5. Nevertheless, for design simplicity, mass-transfer limitation is generally assumed to be in the liquid phase (the biofilm). For a single-component biofilter, the simplified biofilter model and design equation is... 

For this example, absorption with chemical reaction gives a 34 percent reduction in the height of the packing relative to absorption without chemical reaction. 

In the overall picture, different expressions are proposed for the rate of gas absorption with chemical reaction, depending on the forms of the enhancement factor E corresponding to different kinetic regimes, going from reaction-controlling to mass transfer-controlling. Typical cases are ... 

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