Vaporisers control

Many of the earlier studies of mass transfer involved measuring the rate of vaporisation of liquids by passing a turbulent air stream over a liquid surface. In addition, some investigations have been carried out in the absence of air flow, under what have been termed still air conditions. Most of these experiments have been carried out in some form of wind tunnel where the rate of flow of air and its temperature and humidity could be controlled and measured. In these experiments it was found to be important to keep the surface of the liquid level with the rim of the pan in order to avoid the generation of eddies at the leading edge. 

A group of techniques employing differential selection of solute ions relies on nebulisation and ionisation of the eluent, with some discrimination of ion selection in favour of the solute. Main representatives are APCI [544] and thermospray [545]. In a thermospray interface a supersonic jet of vapour and small droplets is generated out of a heated vaporiser tube. Controlled, partial vaporisation of the HPLC solvent occurs before it enters the ion source. Ionisation of nonvolatile analytes takes place by means of solvent-mediated Cl reactions and ion evaporation processes. Most thermospray sources are fitted with a discharge electrode. When this is used, the technique is called plasmaspray (PSP) or discharge-assisted thermospray. In practice, many... 

Figure 3.15b. Similar to the first arrangement but with the water kept at high pressure to prevent vaporisation. The high-pressure water is flashed to steam at lower pressure in a flash drum. This system would give more responsive control of the reactor temperature. 

As with condensers, temperature control is not effective, as the saturated vapour temperature is constant at constant pressure. Level control is often used for vaporisers the controller controlling the steam supply to the heating surface, with the liquid feed to the vaporiser on flow control, as shown in Figure 5.20 (see p. 232). An increase in the feed results in an automatic increase in steam to the vaporiser to vaporise the increased flow and maintain the level constant. 

The normal practice in the design of forced-convection reboilers is to calculate the heat-transfer coefficient assuming that the heat is transferred by forced convection only. This will give conservative (safe) values, as any boiling that occurs will invariably increase the rate of heat transfer. In many designs the pressure is controlled to prevent any appreciable vaporisation in the exchanger. A throttle value is installed in the exchanger outlet line, and the liquid flashes as the pressure is let down into the vapour-liquid separation vessel. 

A sublimation process is controlled primarily by the conditions under which phase equilibria occur in a single-component system, and the phase diagram of a simple one-component system is shown in Figure 15.30 where the sublimation curve is dependent on the vapour pressure of the solid, the vaporisation curve on the vapour pressure of the liquid, and the fusion curve on the effect of pressure on the melting point. The slopes of these three curves can be expressed quantitatively by the Clapeyron equation ... 

In entrainer sublimation, an entrainer gas is blown into the vaporisation chamber of a sublimer in order to increase the vapour flowrate to the condensing equipment, thereby increasing the yield. Air is the most commonly used entrainer, though superheated steam can be employed for substances such as anthracene that are relatively insoluble in water. If steam is used, the vapour may be cooled and condensed by direct contact with a spray of cold water. Although the recovery of the sublimate is efficient, the product is wet. The use of an entrainer gas in a sublimation process also provides the heat needed for sublimation and an efficient means of temperature control. If necessary, it may also provide dilution for the fractional condensation at the desublimation stage. Entrainer sublimation, whether by gas flow over a static bed of solid particles or through a fluidised bed, is ideally suited to continuous operation. 

In the first scheme the metal boiling point is less than the oxide boiling point and the model consists of a vaporising droplet of metal surrounded by a detached reaction zone where condensed oxides appear as fine droplets. The reaction rate is said to be controlled by the vapour phase diffusion of metal and atmospheric oxygen into the reaction zone as in Figure 5.6. 

Desflurane is a fluorinated methyl ethyl ether identical to isoflurane except for the substitution of a chlorine by a fluorine atom (Figure 3.2). It is the least soluble of all the volatile anaesthetics with a similar blood/gas solubility to nitrous oxide (0.42). It is non-flammable under all clinical conditions. The vapour pressure of desflurane approaches 1 atm at 23°C making controlled administration impossible with a conventional vaporiser. A desflurane vaporiser is an electronically controlled pressurised device that delivers an accurately metered dose of vaporised desflurane into a stream of fresh gases passing through it. The MAC of desflurane (6.5% in adults) is the highest of any modern fluorinated agent but in common with these the value decreases in the elderly and in other circumstances (see below). 

Gassy systems are untempered in that pressure relief will not control the temperature or the reaction rate. Hybrid systems can be either tempered or untempered depending on the relative rates of vapour and gas production at the chosen pressure. Lowering the pressure during relief normally increases the likelihood of tempering because the vapour pressure becomes a higher proportion of the total pressure. However, in some cases, this can also increase the likelihood that all of a solvent would be vaporised, either by the reaction itself or by external fire, before the reaction reaches completion. Hybrid systems can be treated as gassy systems if the vapour pressure is low (less than about 10% of the total pressure). 

Typical of an installation for re-gasification of LNG is that it includes a vaporiser and one or more LNG storage tanks - either vertical or horizontal type. The vaporiser receives heat as required to evaporate the LNG either from the surrounding air or from hot water. In the latter case, hot water is usually supplied via a gas-fired burner that consumes about 2% of the corresponding LNG stream to be vaporised [12]. Hot-water-based evaporation is more expensive than the ambient-based evaporation, but is less dependent on the ambient conditions. The re-gasification installation will furthermore include gas controllers and an odoriser. Since natural gas does not smell odour should be injected to the gas flow for safety reasons. Except for the filling of the LNG tanks from time to time - and also the unloading LNG carriers - such facilities could be unmanned. 

To some extent LNG is conceived as a portable pipeline because the LNG tanks can easily be transported by road, rail and sea fully equipped with a vaporiser and control systems. In this manner gas can also be used to temporarily feed the local distribution pipelines in situations of interrupted supply of natural gas. 

According to the FOREGS recommendations (Salminen et al., 1998), soil samples should be dried at 40 °C or less to avoid Hg vaporisation. Samples can be air-dried or dried using IR lamps controlled by a thermal probe to keep the temperature of samples below 40 °C. 

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