Fluid surfaces, mass-transfer coefficients

Referring to Figure 9.1, we will assume that the species of interest is transported from the blood vessel lumen, where its bulk concentration is Q, to the blood vessel surface, where its concentration is Cs, by a convective-diffusive mechanism which depends on the local fluid mechanics and can be characterized by a fluid-phase mass transfer coefficient ki (see Reference 6 for further background). The species flux in the blood phase is given by... 

The drying rate is represented by differential equation (eq. 6) where h is mass transfer coefficient 1/(hcm ) , specific surface area of desiccant beads, cm /g mass of desiccant, g C, concentration by weight of water in the fluid being dried (7, concentration of water at the surface of the desiccant, ie, concentration of water in the fluid that would be in equihbrium with the instantaneous loading on the desiccant, wt-ppm and t — time, h. 

Mass-Transfer Coefficient Denoted by /c, K, and so on, the mass-transfer coefficient is the ratio of the flux to a concentration (or composition) difference. These coefficients generally represent rates of transfer that are much greater than those that occur by diffusion alone, as a result of convection or turbulence at the interface where mass transfer occurs. There exist several principles that relate that coefficient to the diffusivity and other fluid properties and to the intensity of motion and geometry. Examples that are outlined later are the film theoiy, the surface renewal theoiy, and the penetration the-oiy, all of which pertain to ideahzed cases. For many situations of practical interest like investigating the flow inside tubes and over flat surfaces as well as measuring external flowthrough banks of tubes, in fixed beds of particles, and the like, correlations have been developed that follow the same forms as the above theories. Examples of these are provided in the subsequent section on mass-transfer coefficient correlations. 

When there is an external mass transfer resistance, the value of C i (the concentration at the surface of the particle) is less than that in the bulk of the fluid (Cao) and will not be known. However, if the value of the external mass transfer coefficient is known, the mass transfer rate from the bulk of the fluid to the particle may be expressed as ... 

It is necessary to calculate mass transfer coefficients between a fluid and the surface of a particle in a number of important cases, including ... 

Now R0 (the shear stress in the fluid at the surface) is equal and opposite to R, the shear stress acting on the surface, —q jQs is by definition the heat transfer coefficient at the surface (h), and (—NA)y=o/ CAjl - CAw) is the mass transfer coefficient ho). Then dividing both sides of equation 12.100 by pu, and of equation 12.101 by u, to make them dimensionless ... 

For the case where there is a mass transfer resistance in the fluid external to the particle (mass transfer coefficient hn), express the mass transfer rate in terms of the bulk concentration C , rather than the concentration Cts at the surface of the particle. 

Obtain the Taylor-Prandtl modification of the Reynolds Analogy between momentum transfer and mass transfer (equimolecular counterdiffusion) for the turbulent flow of a fluid over a surface. Write down the corresponding analogy for heat transfer. State clearly the assumptions which are made. For turbulent flow over a surface, the film heat transfer coefficient for the fluid is found to be 4 kW/m2 K. What would the corresponding value of the mass transfer coefficient be. given the following physical properties ... 

A phenomenon that is particularly important in the design of reverse osmosis units is that of concentration polarization. This occurs on the feed-side (concentrated side) of the reverse osmosis membrane. Because the solute cannot permeate through the membrane, the concentration of the solute in the liquid adjacent to the surface of the membrane is greater than that in the bulk of the fluid. This difference causes mass transfer of solute by diffusion from the membrane surface back to the bulk liquid. The rate of diffusion back into the bulk fluid depends on the mass transfer coefficient for the boundary layer on feed-side. Concentration polarization is the ratio of the solute concentration at the membrane surface to the solute concentration in the bulk stream. Concentration polarization causes the flux of solvent to decrease since the osmotic pressure increases as the boundary layer concentration increases and the overall driving force (AP - An) decreases. 

Depending on the driving force we choose to employ in our analysis, there are several definitions of mass transfer coefficients that may be considered appropriate for use. If we consider an arbitrary interface between a fluid and the external surface of a catalyst particle, we might choose to define a mass transfer coefficient based on a concentration driving force (kc) as... 

The presence of container walls has a much smaller effect on Sherwood number than on drag since the mass transfer coefficient is only proportional to the one-third power of the surface vorticity. For a sphere with given settling on the axis of a cylindrical container, the Sherwood number decreases with 2, but it is still within 8% of the Sherwood number in an infinite fluid for 2 — 0.5. No data are available to test these predictions. 

The maximum effect of interfacial turbulence on the mass transfer coefficient can be estimated using the correlation of Davies and Rideal (D6) for the initial spreading velocity, of a surface tension-lowering material spreading at the interface between two fluid phases ... 

In 1951,Danckwerts [4] proposed the surface renewal model as an extension ofthe penetration model. Instead of assuming a fixed contact time for all fluid elements, Danckwerts assumed a wide distribution of contact time, from zero to infinity, and supposed that the chance of an element ofthe surface being replaced with fresh liquid was independent of the length of time for which it has been exposed. Then, it was shown, theoretically, that the averaged mass transfer coefficient at the interface is given as... 

The theories vary in the assumptions and boundary conditions used to integrate Fick s law, but all predict the film mass transfer coefficient is proportional to some power of the molecular diffusion coefficient D", with n varying from 0.5 to 1. In the film theory, the concentration gradient is assumed to be at steady state and linear, (Figure 3-2) (Nernst, 1904 Lewis and Whitman, 1924). However, the time of exposure of a fluid to mass transfer may be so short that the steady state gradient of the film theory does not have time to develop. The penetration theory was proposed to account for a limited, but constant time that fluid elements are exposed to mass transfer at the surface (Higbie, 1935). The surface renewal theory brings in a modification to allow the time of exposure to vary (Danckwerts, 1951). 

As is shown in Figure 2, in the two-phase model the fluid bed reactor is assumed to be divided into two phases with mass transfer across the phase boundary. The mass transfer between the two phases and the subsequent reaction in the suspension phase are described in analogy to gas/liquid reactors, i.e. as an absorption of the reactants from the bubble phase with pseudo-homogeneous reaction in the suspension phase. Mass transfer from the bubble surface into the bulk of the suspension phase is described by the film theory with 6 being the thickness of the film. D is the diffusion coefficient of the gas and a denotes the mass transfer coefficient based on unit of transfer area between the two phases. 6 is given by 6 = D/a. 

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