Faculty of Engineering Mass Transfer

Cairo University Fourth Year

1- Ammonia is to be removed from 10% NH3, 90% air mixture by counter-current scrubbing with
pure water at 1 atm. The tower will be provided with cooling system to that the entire operation
may be carried out at 68oF and the tower to be designed to recover 95% of the ammonia
entering with the air. Entering gas rate is 1000 lbmol/hr, Calculate:
a- The minimum water rate.
b- If water is 20% greater than the minimum, calculate the necessary number of ideal plates.
c- Number of actual plates if the overall efficiency is 25%.
Equilibrium data is as follows:
Moles of NH3/moles of water 0.021 0.031 0.042 0.053 0.079 0.106 0.159
PP of NH3, mmHg 12 18.2 24.9 31.7 50 69.6 114

2- In problem (1) if a packed tower of 1 ft2 area is used instead of the plate tower, find the
necessary height if KOY.a=23.6 lbmoles NH3/ft2.hr

3- 470 lb/hr of an air-NH3 mixture containing 5% by weight NH3 are scrubbed with water at 70oC
in an adiabatic tower in order to remove 95% of the NH 3 present. The heat of solution of NH3 in
water is 3000 BTU/lb, and the isothermal equilibrium data at different temperatures may be
approximated into straight line as below:
Temperature, oC 70 75 80 85
Y/X 1/6 1/3 2/3 1
Where Y and X are mass ratios
Calculate:
a- Lmin.
b- Required number of actual plates if stage efficiency is 35% using 1.5 Lmin.
c- Using this number of plates at constant temperature of 70oC and Yout.

4- A gas containing 88% CH4, 4% C2H6, 5% C3H8 and 3% n-C4H10 is to be scrubbed isothermally
at 100oF and 5 atm in a tower containing equivalent to 8 ideal trays. It’s desired to remove 80%
of C3H8. The lean oil will contain 0.5 mol% of n-C4H10 but none of the other gaseous
constituents. What quantity of lean oil (mole/mole gas) should be used, and what will be the
composition of rich oil and scrubbed gas.
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The Henry’s law constants m=y/x are:
CH4 C2H6 C3H8 n-C4H10
32 6.7 2.4 0.74

5- As a result of an absorption process, there is a solution which must be stripped of absorbed

6- An aqueous solution containing 1 mol% ammonia is stripped at atmospheric pressure and 25°C
with pure air in a packed column with packing height of 10 cm. 90% of ammonia was stripped
out when air to water ratio was 2 mol/mol. Find the height of transfer unit.
Equilibrium data:
P = 1.25 x
x = mole fraction of ammonia in water
P = partial pressure of ammonia in air, atm

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Past Examinations Problems:

January 2005:
An absorption packed tower has been built to remove 80% of solute gas (A) fed into the bottom of
the tower at a concentration of 0.01 mole fraction (A). The absorption liquid is pure water and
liquid flow rate used is 1.5 times the minimum.
The equilibrium relation is y=x, where x and y are mole fractions.
i- Calculate the number of transfer units (NTU).
ii- For the same tower a new law is passed so that 95% of (A) must be removed (feed gas flow rate
remains the same). How can it be done? Assume that the height of transfer units (HTU) doesn’t
change and that there is no problem with flooding.

January 2006:
A relatively non-volatile hydrocarbon oil contains 4 mol% propane and is being stripped by direct
superheated steam in a stripping tray tower to reduce the propane content to 0.2 mol%. The
temperature is held constant at 422oK by internal heating in the tower at 2.026E05 Pa pressure.
11.42 kgmol of direct steam is used for 300 kgmol of entering liquid.
The vapour-liquid equilibria can be represented by: y=25x where y and x are mole fractions of
propane in steam and oil. Steam can be considered an inert gas and will not condense. Determine
the number of theoretical trays needed.

November 2006:
Air-acetone mixture containing 4 vol.% acetone is scrubbed with pure water in a tower containing
the equivalent of 3 theoretical plates. Equilibrium relation at 30oC and 1 atma is y=1.9x where y
and x are mole fractions of acetone in gas and liquid respectively. Calculate:
i- Liquid flow rate necessary to recover 80% of acetone from a feed of 100 m3/min at 30oC
and 1 atma.
ii- Minimum pressure in tower necessary to increase the recovery to 95% using the same water
flow rate at the same temperature.
Consider the system to be ideal. (Molecular weight of acetone is 58)

January 2007:
Ammonia is to be absorbed from an air mixture by contacting it with water at 20oC. The entering
gas composition is 10 mol% ammonia and the exit gas is to contain 1 mol% ammonia. Flow of
entering gas is 10 moles/sec at 20oC at normal atmospheric pressure.

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i- Determine the minimum entering water flow rate needed to accomplish this separation.
ii- Determine the minimum number of equilibrium stages required and the exit liquid composition
at 1.25 of the minimum entering water flow rate.
iii- Suppose that all the liquid leaving the absorption column in (ii) is fed to the top of a stripping
tower operating at 20oC. Stripping tower operates at 20oC. Pure air at 20oC is fed into the
bottom at a rate of 9 moles/sec. Determine the exit gas and liquid compositions for these
conditions, assuming that the stripper is equivalent to the same number of equilibrium stages as
the absorber in (ii).
Equilibrium relation at 20oC is as follows:

Kmol of NH3/Kmol of water 0.021 0.031 0.042 0.053 0.079 0.106 0.159

PP of NH3 (mmHg) 12 18.2 24.9 31.7 50 69.6 114

November 2007:
Air-acetone mixture containing 5 vol.% acetone is scrubbed with pure water to absorb 90% of the
acetone. If the gas flow rate is 100 lbmol/hr, equilibrium relation is y=1.7x where y and x are mole
fractions of acetone in gas and liquid respectively. Calculate:
a- The minimum water rate.
b- If water is 20% greater than the minimum, calculate the necessary number of ideal trays.
c- For the same tower, if the water rate becomes 0.9 the water rate in part (b), calculate the
percentage recovery of acetone.
d- Discuss the different possibilities to increase the separation in absorption.

January 2008:
Propane is to be stripped from a non-volatile oil by steam in a counter current tower. Five moles of
steam will be supplied at the bottom of the tower for every 100 moles of oil-propane feed at the top.
The oil originally contains 2.5 mol% propane, and this concentration must be reduced
to 0.25 mol%. The tower is maintained at 138oC and 2.4 atm, Equilibrium relation is y=33.4x
(where x and y are mole fractions of propane in liquid and vapour respectively), determine:
i- How many equilibrium stages are required.
ii- What would be the minimum steam rate necessary to give the same recovery of propane.
iii- What will be the effect of lowering the temperature of the stripping?