Assignment No.

8
Problem Statement
L, XF

L, X5

V, y1

V, y6 (air + benzene)

L = 4/3 kmol/hr , V = 5/6 kmol/hr , XF = 0 , y6 = 0.1 , = 0.5 , hold up = 20/3 kmol

For the above absorption column:
1) Find the steady state composition at each tray.
2) Develop the dynamic response of a step change and a perturbation of L on the composition of
each tray.
3) Find the values of L to make y1 = 10%, 5% and 1% of y6 .

Solution
The equations are:
For nth tray:
Total Material Balance:

= 1 + +1

n=2,3,4,5

Here L is the flow rate of liquid (absorbent) diesel. Also V is the flow rate of vapor.
As 1 = = and +1 = = ,

= 0 i.e., M(Liquid Holdup) is constant for all trays.

= 1 1 + +1 +1

Component Balance:
As = ,

= 1 1 + +1 +1
1 1

( + )

+ +1 +1 n=2,3,4,5
=

For n=1, 1 =

Steady state composition:

At steady state all the derivative terms are zero. So the five algebraic equations were solved
simultaneously using fsolve.
Ans:
Steady state composition at 1 numbered tray: 0.0004
Steady state composition at 2 numbered tray: 0.0017
Steady state composition at 3 numbered tray: 0.0059
Steady state composition at 4 numbered tray: 0.0193
Steady state composition at 5 numbered tray: 0.0624
2) Dynamic Response
The dynamic responses were simulated using the function ode45. So we have five simultaneous ODE
and five unknowns. For solving the ODEs we assumed the initial condition to be:
Initial Conc. Of Benzene in all Trays = 0 i.e., xn=0.
The following figure shows the dynamic response from t=0 to t=100 hrs.

Step response:
First the system was allowed to reach steady state starting for t=0 to t=150 hrs and the value of L was
4/3 Kmol/hr. The initial condition for this is same as the earlier one. At t=120 hrs a step change in L was
provided (Lnew=8/3 Kmol/hr) and the dynamic response of the step change was obtained using the
same ode45 function for t=120 to t=150 hrs. The Initial Conc. Of Benzene in all Trays = 0 i.e., xn=0.
Dynamic response of Tray compositions are shown in the following figures:

Perturbation of L:
Dynamic response of compositions were obtained from t=0 to t=100 hrs using the L value of 4/3
Kmol/hr. At t=100 hrs a perturbation in L was given at L value was kept at a new value of L=10 Kmol/hr
from t=100 hr to t=102 hrs. At t=102 hrs, L value was restored at L= 4/3 Kmol/hr.
Here for each value of L dynamic response was obtained by setting the initial condition as the final set of
composition obtained from the previous one.

Dynamic response of Tray compositions are shown in the following figures:

3) Here y1=a* y6.

Where a =some fraction.
We know the value of y6, so we also know the value of y1 and from y1 also x1 (As x1=y1/).
Here L is unknown and that is what we have to find out.
In the above mentioned sets of algebraic equations we have again 5 unknowns i.e, L,x2,x3,x4,x5 and we
also have five equations. So the above equations were solved using the function fsolve and L value was
found out for different values of a.
Result:
Value of L: 0.501168 Kmol/hr when y1 is 10 percent of y6.
Value of L: 0.618320 Kmol/hr when y1 is 5 percent of y6.
Value of L: 0.931000 Kmol/hr when y1 is 1 percent of y6.