Convective diffusion turbulent pipe flow

Note Equation (4.241) characterizes diffusion when the mixture element is in steady state with no turbulence. Diffusion in a pipe can be represented by Eq. (4.241) in convective mass transfer the flow and turbulence are important. 

The complexities of turbulent flow are outside the province of this book. However, there are two further properties of laminar convective flow that are relevant to understanding the electrochemical situation. The first is easily understood by considering an excellent illustration of it—river flow. It is a matter of common observation that rivers (which flow convectively as a result of being pushed by gravity) move at maximum rale in the middle. At the river bank there is hardly any flow at all. This observation can be transferred to the flow of liquid through a pipe. The flow reaches a maximum velocity in the center. The liquid actually in contact with the walls of the pipe does not flow at all. The stationary layer is a few micrometers in thickness, about 1 % of the thickness of the diffusion layer set up by natural convection in an unstirred solution when an electrode reaction in steady state is occurring. 

Mass transfer can be definnd simply as the movement of any identifiable species from one spatial location to another. Tha mechanism of movement can be macroscopic as in the flow of a fluid in a pipe (convection) or in the mechanical transport of solids by a conveyor belt. In addition, the transport of a panicolar species may be the result of madom molecular motion (molecular diffusion) or randum microscopic fluid motion (eddy or turbulent diffusion) in the presence of a composition gradient within a phase. This chapter is concerned primarily with mass transfer owing to molecular or microscopic processes. 

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