Absorption In a Packed Column

by Alex Leonard

Submitted : Spring 2011

To begin, the student was given a packed column 120 inches in height and with a transfer unit of 30 inches. Ammonia in the gas phase would enter the the bottom of the column and flow through the top, and pure water would enter the top of the column and flow through the bottom. In the transfer unit, some of the ammonia in the gas phase would be absorbed by the pure water, decreasing the concentration of the ammonia in the gas phase and increasing the concentration in the liquid phase until equilibrium was reached. The student's goal was to study two seperate cases, one where the equilibrium was linear and one where the equilibrium was nonlinear. After analytically solving the linear case, the result for L was found to be 611.85 mol/hr. An analytical approach could not be taken for the nonlinear case, hence it had to be done with Microsoft Excel using a numerical approach. The linear case was done first using the approach to check the reliability of the result. After the result was found to be 617.0552 mol/hr, it was determined that the same approach could be used for the nonlinear case. The result for the nonlinear case ended up being 698.5429 mol/hr.

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