THERMAL EFFECTS DURING ABSORPTION AND STRIPPING

Your objectives in studying this section are to be able to  

Combine material and energy balances with equilibrium considerations to determine the number of equilibrium stages required by a tray absorber or stripper when heat effects are important. 

Many absorbers and strippers deal with dilute gas mixtures and liquid solutions, and it is satisfactory in these cases to assume that the operation is isothermal. But actual absorption operations are usually exothermic, and when large quantities of solute gas are absorbed to form concentrated solutions, the thermal effects cannot be ignored. If by absorption the temperature of the liquid is raised to a considerable extent, the equilibrium solubility of the solute will be appreciably reduced and the capacity of the absorber decreased (or else much larger flow rates of liquid will be required). For stripping, an endothermic process, the temperature of the liquid tends to fall. To take into account thermal effects during absorption and stripping, energy balances must be combined with the material balances presented in Chapter 3. 

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