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Material Balances

The concentration of a pollutant in a lake decreases exponentially over time according to the differential equation dC/dt = -kC

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ahmad maznan
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62 views19 pages

Material Balances

The concentration of a pollutant in a lake decreases exponentially over time according to the differential equation dC/dt = -kC

Uploaded by

ahmad maznan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Material Balances

Law of Conservation of Matter


Disregarding nuclear reactions, matter can
neither be created nor destroyed.

The mathematical representation of this law is


called a materials balance or mass balance.
Law of Conservation of Energy:

Energy cannot be created or destroyed. The


mathematical representation of this law is called
an energy balance.
This law and the previous are combined into the
Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy and it
states that the total amount of energy and matter
is constant.
Materials Balance
• For environmental processes, the basic
equation is:
• Accumulation = Input – Output - Decay
and each of these terms refers to a mass
quantity (make sure units match) within the
system (memorize this).
• The system could be the planet or it could
be a cell or anything in between.
Systems
• Picking a system includes: what do you
want to know, what data is available and
what variations can be averaged.
• System boundaries are defined so as to
make calculations simple. The system
within the boundaries is called the control
volume.
Control Volume: what is within the dotted lines
rain

river Spartan Lake river

evaporation

condominiums
Wolverine Lake
Assumptions
• When looking at a system, assumptions are
sometimes made.
• Steady State – accumulation in the system does
not change (in = out)
d
M 0
dt
• Conservative – the pollutant does not decay
Mass Flow Rate
The effectiveness of an environmental process in removing
a contaminant can be determined using the mass balance
technique:

d d d
M ( in )  ( out)
dt dt dt

The mass of contaminant per unit of time may be


calculated as
mass
( concentration ) ( flow rate)
time
Mass Flow Rate
The mass flow rate that we are going to look at today is
given by the equation:

d
M CinQin  CoutQout
dt
Example
• An industry, on the banks of Spartan Lake,
discharges a pollutant into Spartan Lake. The
river flow is 10 m3/s, the waste flow is 0.1 m3/s,
the pollutant’s concentration in the river is 20 mg/l
and in the waste flow it is 3000 mg/l.
• What is the flow rate out and what is the
concentration of the pollutant in the outflow?
Qw= 0.1 m3/s
Cw= 3000 mg/l

river Spartan Lake river

Qi= 10 m3/s Qo=


Ci= 20 mg/l Co=

condominiums
Wolverine Lake
Example Solved
Non-conservative Pollutants
• Most pollutants degrade over time and the rate
of decay is proportional to the amount present
• Rate of degradation varies for different
pollutants
• Simplest way to describe it is modeling it as a
first order reaction

d
C kC
dt
Same example, only different
• Suppose the pollutant from the factory has a
rate coefficient of 1 x 10-5 sec-1 and the lake
volume is 2 x 106 m3. Now what is the
steady state concentration?
• Accumulation = in – out – decay
• 0
• Now, in = out – decay
Continued
• How do we handle the decay?
• k*Cl*Vl where Cl andVl are relative to
the lake
• k is the rate coefficient
• The equation now becomes:
• CinQin = CoutQout - kClVl
• Now try to solve the problem
Non-steady-state conditions
• When accumulation doesn’t equal 0
• The accumulation term becomes
 d 
V C 
 dt 
And this is a differential equation
Expanded Equation
• C(t) = [C0 – C(∞)]e-(k + Q/V)t + C(∞)

• Where
C  
S
Q  kV
S = mass input rate (mass/time)
Same example, only different again

• Suppose the factory discharging the


pollutant gets shut down by the feds, what is
the concentration 2 days after the discharge
stops?

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