WOLLO UNIVERSITY

KOMBOLCHA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

Thermal Unit Operation (ChEg3215)

By Abatu Habtamu (MSc.)

 1. Introductory Concepts
1.1 Chemical Engineering Unit Operations
1.2 Classification of Unit Operations
1.3 Heat Transfer
1.4 Modes of heat transfer

Learning outcomes
➢ At end of this session, you will be able to;
✓ Define Chemical engineering unit operation
✓ List some of unit operations
✓ Describe heat transfer
✓ Discuss the difference between different modes of heat transfer
 1.1 Chemical Engineering Unit Operations
•

➢ The Production of useful end product from raw material involves several
processing steps (e.g heat exchanger, reactor, evaporator, distillation,)
interconnected with each other in a systematic manner.

Fig. Sugar production process diagram

➢ Chemical processing steps are divided into unit operation and unit
process for simple understanding of the working principles, type of
equipment for operation, its design, and material of construction.
➢ Unit operation is defined as the process which cause physical change on
the raw material. It does not involve any chemical reaction.
Examples of unit operations
✓ crushing, washing,
✓ evaporation,
✓ heating or cooling,
✓ distillation

➢ Unit process is the processing step which cause chemical change on the
raw material. It involve chemical reaction.
e.g. Sulphonation, nitration, polymerization, hydrogenation
halogenation, alkylation, hydrolysis, oxidation
 1.2 Classification of chemical Engineering unit operation
➢ Chemical engineering unit operations can be grouped into five classes
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a) Fluid flow process b) Mass transfer

c) Thermodynamic process d) Mechanical process
e) Heat transfer process

a) Fluid flow process concerned with fluids transportation and the

principles that determine fluid flow. It includes fluids transportation
(pump, compressor, blowers, pipes and fittings,), gas-liquid two-phase
flow, filtration, solids fluidization, mixing, etc.
 Cont’d….
b) Mass transfer process is the net movement/transfer of mass or chemical
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species from high-concentration regions to low-concentration regions.

➢ It occurs in many processes, such as absorption, distillation,
extraction, evaporation, adsorption, and drying.

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Cont’d….
c) Thermodynamic process is the development of
energetic thermodynamic system in which the
thermodynamic state change from an initial state to a
final state.

d) Mechanical process deals with solid processing such as solid size

reduction by crushing, grinding and pulverizing, mixing, conveying,
mechanical separation such as decantation, filtration, sedimentation,
sieving, screening and floatation.
2
Cont’d….
e) Heat transfer process study the transfer of thermal/heat energy between
objects a result of temperature difference between them. We call this
thermal unit operation

➢ It play important role in power, chemical processing, air conditioning

and other industries where heat and power are used.
➢ Some of the equipments that operate using the principles of thermal unit
operation includes Heat Exchangers, Furnaces, evaporators, distillation
units, condensers, cooling towers, dryers, and reaction vessel
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1.3 Fundamentals of heat transfer
❖ Heat transfer terms ( Temperature, heat, and thermodynamics)
Temperature:
➢ Is the property of substance which indicate how hot or cold is a substance.
➢ It is a measure of the amount of energy possessed by the molecules of a
substance and used to predict the direction of heat transfer.

Heat:
➢ Consider two blocks A and B at different temperature. When the two
blocks come in contact; block B gets heated ( heat is transferred from
warmer block A to cooler block B).
➢ Thus, heat is defined as thermal energy transferred
as result of temperature difference.
➢ Transfer of Heat is from high temperature medium
(warmer) to low temperature medium (cooler).
 Heat transfer and thermodynamics: Relation and difference
Heat transfer
✓ Is science which study transfer of energy.
✓ Deals with non equilibrium states of system since there must be
temperature difference for heat transfer to take place.
✓ Determine heat transfer rate (amount of heat transferred per unit time)
and time taken to heat or cool an object.
✓ Predict temperature of object at different location (temperature
distribution in object).
✓ Identify by what mechanisms (conduction, convection, or radiation)
does heat transfer takes place.
✓ The first law of thermodynamics govern that energy can neither be
created nor destroyed.
 Thermodynamics
✓ Study about energy transfer. Deals with equilibrium state of system and
changes from one equilibrium state to another.
✓ Determine the amount of energy required to change a system from one
equilibrium state to another. But it does not identify how heat is transferred
and not predict how long (time) it take to change one equilibrium state to
another.
✓ It may predict the initial and final temperature of equilibrium of system.
But does not tell the temperature of a system at different location before it
reaches equilibrium condition.
✓ The first law of thermodynamics govern that energy can neither be created
nor destroyed and second law of thermodynamics states heat transfer from
hot body to cold body (direction of heat transfer).
 Modes of Heat transfer
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➢ When two bodies at different temperatures are come in contact, heat

transfer from a hot body to cold body. Heat can be transferred by three
different ways /modes or combination of these.
ⅰ) Conduction
ⅱ) Convection and
ⅲ) Radiation
➢ All modes of heat transfer require the existence of temperature difference,
temperature difference is the driving force for heat transfer.
➢ Heat is transferred from the higher temperature medium to the lower-
temperature medium.
➢ Conduction is the transfer of heat through stationary/non moving medium
(solid or fluid) which are in direct physical contact with each other.

➢ Convection is transfer of heat between a surface and moving fluid if there

is temperature difference between them.

➢ Radiation is the transfer of heat from one body to another body that are
not in contact through space/vacuum by electromagnetic waves.
 Conduction
➢ Is the transfer of heat from one part of medium to another part of the
same medium, or from one medium to another in physical contact with it,
without movement of medium.
➢ Mechanism of heat conduction in solids, liquids, and gases is different as
their molecular arrangement is different.
➢ The molecules of solids are strongly held together by strong lattice bond.
Thus in solids heat conduction occurs by two mechanisms
i) By Lattice vibration and ii) by free electron transport
 Conduction……
➢ The molecules of gas and liquids are randomly arranged in high space
between them and free to move randomly.

➢ Thus, in gases and liquids, heat conduction is due to the collisions and
diffusion of the molecules during their random motion.
 Cont’d….
➢ Conduction heat transfer is governed by the physical law
called Fourier’s law of heat conduction.
➢ It states that the rate of heat flow by conduction is
directly proportional to the area normal to the direction
of the heat flow and the temperature gradient in the
direction of the heat flow.

Introduce constant of proportionality it becomes;

 Cont’d….

After rearrangement it becomes

 Example
1. The roof of heated home is 6 m long, 8 m wide, and 0.25 m thick, and is
made of a flat layer of concrete whose thermal conductivity is k 0.8W/m ·
°C . The temperatures of the inner and the outer surfaces of the roof are
measured to be 15°C and 4°C, respectively. Determine (a) the rate of heat
loss through the roof.
 CONVECTION
• The mode of energy transfer between a solid
surface and the adjacent liquid or gas that is in
motion, and it involves the combined effects of
conduction and fluid motion.

• The faster the fluid motion, the greater the

convection heat transfer.

• In the absence of any bulk fluid motion, heat

transfer between a solid surface and the adjacent
fluid is by pure conduction.

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➢ Energy is first transferred to air layer next to the block by conduction. This
energy is then carried away from the surface by convection, that is, by the
combined effects of conduction within the air due to random motion of air
molecules and the bulk motion of the air that removes the heated air near the
surface and replaces it by the cooler air.

➢Two types of convection based on nature of convection

a) Natural or Free convection: if the fluid motion is caused by buoyancy forces
that are induced by density differences due to the variation of temperature in the
fluid.
➢Heat transfer from the surface of the hot egg will be by natural
convection since any motion in the air will be due to the rise of
the warmer (and thus lighter) air near the surface and the fall of
the cooler (and thus heavier) air to fill its place.
b) Forced convection: if the fluid motion is caused by
external means such as a fan, pump, or the wind and fluid is
forced to move over surface.

➢ Heat transfer by convection is governed by the physical law called

Newton’s law of cooling.
➢ It states that the rate of convection heat transfer is directly proportional to
the area of surface and the temperature difference.

Mathematically it can be expressed by

 Radiation
➢ Is transfer of heat due to emission of electromagnetic radiation through
vacuum in the absence of medium.
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➢ Substitute the above initial values into equation (6) and we get

1 10 1 10
=[s T ̅(𝑠) -0] +α T ̅(𝑠) = * +0 = s T’ ̅(𝑠) + α T’ ̅(𝑠) = *
τ 𝑠 τ 𝑠
1 10
= T’ ̅(𝑠) (s+ α) = *
τ 𝑠
1 10 1 10 1 10 𝐶1 𝑐2
T’ ̅(𝑠)= * * = [ ]= [ + ] after finding c1
τ 𝑠 𝑠+𝑎 τ 𝑠(𝑠+𝑎) τ 𝑠 𝑠+𝑎
1 −1
c2, c1= , c2 = , substitute back
𝑎 𝑎
10 1 10 1 1 10 1 1
we get T’ ̅(𝑠)= [ ]= [ - ] = [ - ]
τ 𝑠(𝑠+𝑎) τ 𝑎𝑠 𝑎(𝑠+𝑎) τ𝑎 𝑠 𝑠+𝑎
10 1 1 10 1 1
Thus T(t) = L-1[T’ ̅(𝑠)] = L-1[ [ - ] = L-1 [ - ]
τ𝑎 𝑠 𝑠+𝑎 τ𝑎 𝑠 𝑠+𝑎
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T(t) = (1-𝑒 −𝑎𝑡 )
τ𝑎
1) Find analytically the laplace transforms of the following functions use
laplace transform table 7.1
a) f(t) =𝑡 𝑛 b) f(t) =𝑒 −𝑎𝑡 *sin(ωt) c) f(t) = 𝑡 𝑛 𝑒 −𝑎𝑡
2) Solve the following linear differential equations using laplace transforms
𝑑2 𝑦 𝑑𝑦 𝑑𝑦
a) +3 -y =5t with initial condition ( ) =0 and y(0) =0
𝑑𝑡 2 𝑑𝑡 𝑑𝑡 𝑡=0

𝑑3 𝑦 𝑑2 𝑦
b) 2 3- 2 +3y =1 +sin2t with initial conditions 𝑦 " (0)=𝑦 ’ (0)=y(0) =0
𝑑𝑡 𝑑𝑡

𝑑2 𝑦
c) -2 =0 with initial condition 𝑦 ’ (0)=y(0) =0
𝑑𝑡 2

3) Find the inverse laplace transform of the following expressions

𝑠 2 +4𝑠+3 𝑠 3 +2𝑠 2 −𝑠−2
a) y ̅(𝑠) = b)
𝑠 2 +1 (𝑠 2 −7𝑠+12 𝑠 3 +6𝑠 2 +11𝑠+30
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