ChemE 435

Mass Transfer Operations

Instructor: Professor Daniel Schwartz David Robinson, TA

Office: 353 Benson Hall 338 Benson Hall

Office Hours: Thursdays, 1:30—3:30 p.m.

schwartz@cheme.washington.edu

Grading

Grades will be determined from the scores on homework (50 pts), the best two out of three midterm exams (100 pts each), and a team project (100 pts). Everyone is expected to take all three midterm exams. There will be no make-up exams. If you miss a midterm exam for a legitimate, documentable reason, then you automatically throw that exam out and the other two midterm exams will be used to determine your grade. If you miss an exam and cannot document a legitimate reason for missing the exam, or if you miss two midterms, then you will be expected to withdraw from the course or receive a failing grade. Special rules apply for people who do very well on the first two midterms. Homework is due at the beginning of class on fridays. Late homework will receive no points, but its receipt will be acknowledged in the grade book. The grader is under no obligation to grade sloppy or illegible homework. Midterms are tentatively scheduled for 10/18, 11/8, and 12/11. The final project write-up is due 11/27 and project demonstrations will be performed on 12/13 (8:30—10:20 am) in the Unit Operations Lab.

Text

The recommended text is Transport Processes and Unit Operations, 3rd Ed., by C.J. Geankoplis. Alternative reference texts include Mass Transfer Operations by R.E. Treybal and Perry's Handbook.

Course Outline

1. Membrane separations: §13.1-13.4, parts of §7.6

Membrane separations with emphasis on gas and liquid permeation. Analogy between heat

and mass transfer.

2. Drying: §9.1-9.7

Drying of porous media by convective mass transfer.

3. Staged and continuous gas-liquid operations: Chapter 10, and parts of §6.2, §7.2—7.4

Interphase mass transfer coefficients. Using operating and equilibrium lines.

Principles and the design of humidification and absorption processes.

4. Vapor-Liquid Separations: Chapter 11

A basic refresher on vapor-liquid equilibria. Distillation with binary and multicomponent

systems. Tray and overall efficiencies. Using Aspen for nonideal and multicomponent

distillation. Heuristics for designing distillation trains.

5. Design considerations: Mainly from alternative texts.

Impact of design on operating characteristics of tray and packed towers (efficiencies, mass

transfer, pressure drop, flooding, etc.).