Process and

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Process Variables
Lecture 2

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Process
• Process is an operation which could cause physical or
chemical change in the material being processed.

FEED UNIT PRODUCT

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• The process is carried out in a unit. The material which enters
the unit is the feed and the material leaving the unit is the
product.

• The process can be carried out in a batch or continuous unit.

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Batch Processing
• Batch Processing
• Material is fed into the unit at once, processing is allowed to
occur. When this is complete all products and any un-reacted
reagents are withdrawn.

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FEED PRODUCT
UNIT UNIT UNIT

At the start of the At the end of the

Processing
process. process.

• Batch Process is operated in unsteady state, the

concentration of the material being processed, at a specific 3
point in the unit, will change with time.
Continuous Processing, Chemical Processes
• Continuous Process
• The feed enters and the product exits the unit continuously.

FEED PRODUCT
UNIT

• At the start up, this process will be an unsteady state process. As

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equilibrium is reached the system will perform as a steady state
process.

• These continuous and batch processes can carry out chemical or

physical processing.

• Chemical Processing: will result in a molecular change as well as

physical change in the material being processed. e.g., when we burn 4
coal and convert it to gaseous products, CO and CO2.
Physical Processing
• Physical Processing
• Any operations which cause change in the physical properties
but has no effect on the molecular structure or composition of
the material being processed (processing does not involve
chemical reactions).

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• Examples:
1. Drying: Separation of volatile solvent or water from a wet
solid. Evaporated
Water

Wet Solid Dry Solid

DRYER 5
Physical Processing (Examples)
2. Distillation: Separation of two fluids of different volatilities
and boiling points.
Ethanol
Ethanol &
Water Distillation
mixtures Column

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Water

2. Crystallisation: Separation of solute from liquid

Sugar Crystals

Concentrated Crystalliser Dilute Sugar 6

Sugar Solution Solution
Physical Processing (Examples)
3. Humidification: The process whereby water is transferred
into gas, eg, air
Wet Air

Humidifier
Water

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Dry Air

2. Mixer: Combines two or more inputs (usually different

compositions) into a single output (no reaction occur).
Feed 1
Mixer Mixture 7
Feed 2
Weight and Mass
• Weight, W
• Force of gravity on an object with a certain mass, m.
• The weight, mass and gravitational acceleration (g) of the object are
related by the following equation:

• where the value of gravitational acceleration in each system of units:

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• Example:
The mass of a steel ball is 10 kg. The weight of this ball on the earth’s
surface is:
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The Mole Units
• Molecular Weight of a compound
• The sum of the atomic weights (from the periodic table) of the atoms
that constitute a molecule of a compound.

• To convert the number of moles to mass (vice versa), we make use

of the molecular weight (mass per mole):

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or

• Note:
• The lb-mole can be used in a similar manner to g-mole in determining
the quantities of a substance.
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• For lb-mole, mass is in lbm. For g-mole, mass is in g.
• For kg-mole, mass is in kg.
• g-mole is usually expressed as mol (i.e. kgmole = kmol).
Compositions (Mass and Mole Fractions)
• When a stream is consists of more than one compound, the values
of these compounds are expressed as fractions of the total quantity
in that stream.
• The value of doing this will become apparent when we start
formulating mass balance equations.
• These values are called compositions. There are several ways of

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expressing compositions, but the most common ways are as
follows:

1. Mass Fraction (xA):

2. Mass Percentage: 10
Compositions (Mass and Mole Fractions)
3. Mole Fraction (yA):

4. Mole Percentage:

Try this:

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A solution contains 15% A by mass (xA = 0.15) and 20 mol% B (yB =
0.20).
a) Calculate the mass of A in 175 kg of the solution.
b) Calculate the mass flow rate of A in a stream of solution flowing
at a rate of 53 lbm/h.
c) Calculate the total solution flow rate that corresponds to a molar
flow rate of 28 kmol B/s. 11

d) Calculate the mass of the solution that contains 300 lbm of A.

Compositions (Mass and Mole Fractions)
Solution:

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Compositions (Mass and Mole Fractions)
Conversion from a composition by Mass to a Molar Composition

A mixture of gases has the following composition by mass:

O2 16% (xO2 = 0.16 g O2 / g total)
CO 4.0%
CO2 17%

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N2 63%

Use a basis of 100 g of the mixture, what is the molar composition?

Note: a convenient way to perform the calculation is to set them up in

tabular form.
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Compositions (Mass and Mole Fractions)
Solution:
Basis = 100 g of mixture = mtotal

Component Mass Mass (g) Molecular Moles Mole

i Fraction, mi = xi mtotal Weight, Mi ni = m i / M i Fraction
xi (g/mol) yi = ni/ntotal
O2

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CO

CO2

N2

Total

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Average Molecular Weight
_
• Average Molecular Weight, M (kg/kmol, lbm/lb-mole, etc)
• If yi is the mole fraction of the ith component of the mixture and Mri is
the molecular weight of this component, then

Average Mr of Mixture = y1Mr1 + y2Mr2 + y3Mr3 + ….. = å yi M i

all component

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• Examples:
Calculate the average molecular weight of air form its
approximate molar composition of 79% N2 and 21% O2.

Solution:

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Definition of Concentration
• Mass Concentration: Relation between Cm and CM:

• Molar Concentration:
The molarity, M the value of
the molar concentration of the

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solute expressed in gram-
moles/liter of the solution.

• Note that concentration values can be used as conversion factors to

convert mass or moles to volume and vice versa.

• Example: Calculate the weight of NaOH in 1 litre of 2M NaOH

solution.
Answer: 16
Molar and Mass Flow rate
• In a batch system, the feed and product exiting from the
process are expressed as absolute mass. For example 1 tonne
of syrup is fed into a crystalliser to produce 500 kg of sugar.

• In a continuous system, the quantities of the materials being

processed are usually measured as mass being transferred
per unit time or mass flow or mole flow (such as 500 kg/s or

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2 mol/s).

1. Conversion of Mass flowrate to Mole flowrate:

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Rearranging this equation will allow the reverse conversion
(mole flow rate to mass flow rate).
Molar and Mass Flow rate
2. Conversion of Mass or Molar Flowrates to Volume Flowrate
• The conversion factor which is used to convert mass flow to volumetric
flow rate is density the solution. The molar concentration is used to
convert molar flow rate to volumetric flow rate.

• Density is defined as mass per unit volume of a substance.

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• The specific gravity (SG) of a substance is the ratio of density (ρ) of the
substance to the density of a reference (ρref) substance at specific
condition.
The most common r H 2O (l ) = 1.000 g/cm3
reference used for
solids and liquid is = 1000 kg/m3
water at 4oC (shown in = 62.43 lbm/ft3 18
the next table).
Remember this!
Molar and Mass Flow rate
.
• The mass flow rate ( m, kg/s) of a liquid can be converted to its
volumetric flow rate using the density of that liquid:

• The following equation can be used to determine volumetric

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flow rate from the mass concentration: .

• The conversion factor for molar flow rate ( n, mol/s) to

volume flow is molar concentration
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Molar and Mass Flow rate (Example)
A 0.50 molar aqueous solution of sulphuric acid, H2SO4 flows
into a process unit at a rate of 1.25 m3/min. The specific gravity
of the solution is 1.03. Calculate
a) The mass concentration of H2SO4 in kg/m3.
b) The mass flow rate of H2SO4 in kg/s
c) The mass fraction of H2SO4.

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Molar and Mass Flow rate (Example)

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Composition on a Dry Basis
• Common techniques for the analysis of gases frequently
provide compositions on a ‘dry basis’ indicating the
composition of the gas without water.

• Example:
• A stack gas contains 60.0 mole% N2, 15.0 % CO2, 10.0 % O2 and

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the balance H2O. Calculate the molar composition of the gas
on a dry basis. Basis: 100 mol of stack gas.
Moles (Wet Basis) Moles (Dry Basis) Mole% (dry gas)
N2
CO2
O2 22
H 2O
Total