10/4/2018 What Is Mass Transfer?

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 What Is Mass Transfer? (/mul physics/what-is-mass-transfer)
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What Is Convec on? (/mul physics/what-is-convec on)
 What Is Di usion? (/mul physics/what-is-di usion)
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What Is Mass Transfer?

 (/mul physics)  Chemical ()  What Is Mass Transfer?

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10/4/2018
Understanding Mass TransferWhat Is Mass Transfer?
Mass transfer describes the transport of mass from one point to another and
is one of the main pillars in the subject of Transport Phenomena
(/multiphysics/transport-phenomena). Mass transfer may take place in a
single phase or over phase boundaries in multiphase systems. In the vast
majority of engineering problems, mass transfer involves at least one fluid
phase (gas or liquid), although it may also be described in solid-phase
materials.

In many cases, the mass transfer of species takes place together with chemical
reactions. This implies that flux of a chemical species does not have to be
conserved in a volume element, since chemical species may be produced or
consumed in such an element. The chemical reactions are sources or sinks in
such flux balances.

The theory of mass transfer allows for the computation of mass flux in a
system and the distribution of the mass of different species over time and
space in such a system, also when chemical reactions are present. The
purpose of such computations is to understand, and possibly design or
control, such a system.

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(h ps://cdn.comsol.com/cyclopedia/what-is-mass-transfer/ g1_conv.png)

Transport and reac ons in a reactor. The concentra on isosurfaces reveal mass transfer through di usion and
convec on. The ux through di usion takes place perpendicular to the concentra on isosurfaces, i.e., the

reac ons may cause a ux to the reac on site of the species that are consumed in the reac on. Convec on
creates a larger separa on between the concentra on isosurfaces and takes place along the streamlines of the
uid ow (in white), which in some places run along the isosurfaces, since convec on tends to eliminate

concentra on gradients along its main direc on.

Mathema cal Descrip on of Mass Transfer

The driving force, F, for mass transfer is created by gradients in the system
potential, U:

(1)

Gradients in chemical composition are usually responsible for this driving

force. The driving force for transport over phase boundaries is generated by a
deviation from equilibrium over such a phase boundary. Additional driving
forces may contribute with a drift velocity, such as the forces created by
migration (/multiphysics/what-is-ionic-migration), pressure, gravitational, and
centrifugal forces.
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The equation below shows the forces acting on a chemical species, per mole
of atoms, ions, or molecules, due to gradients in chemical potential and
electric fields (migration) 1.

(2)

In these equations, R denotes the gas constant, T is the temperature, ai is the

activity of each species, zi denotes the charge number of a species, F is the
Faraday constant, and φ is the electric potential. The negative gradient of φ is
the electric field. The activity can be understood as a thermodynamic
measure of the chemical potential of the system, so that gradients in activity
correspond to driving forces for chemical mass transport.

A simple chemical assumption is that the activity of a species i is given by its

mole fraction, denoted as xi. This is exactly true for an ideal mixture.

(3)

The forces on a species i are balanced by the friction in the interaction

between this species and the other species in a mixture. The friction acting on
a mole of i is proportional to the difference in mass velocity between i and
each species j in the mixture, the mole fraction of each species j in a mixture,
and the friction coefficient between i and j.

(4)

In this equation, ζij denotes the friction coefficient between species i and j, xj
is the mole fraction of species j, and uR,i is the mass species velocity of species
i relative to the mass average velocity of the whole mixture. Note that the
mass velocities of each species in the equation above are given using the mass
average velocity for the mixture as reference. A species that does not deviate
from the velocity of the mixture (i.e., that does not diffuse or migrate, in this
case), has a zero uR,i, when using the mixture velocity as reference.

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If we now set the driving forces to exactly balance the friction forces acting
on species i, we obtain the following equation:

(5)

The molar flux is defined as

(6)

where Ji is the flux vector of species i relative to the velocity of the mixture
and c is the total concentration of all species in a mixture. Introducing the
Maxwell-Stefan diffusivity as:

(7)

and using the molar flux to eliminate uR,i and uR,j in the force balance
equation above yields the following expression:

(8)

This is the Maxwell-Stefan equation, an equation that forms the basis for the
mathematical description of mass transfer of chemical species in a mixture 2.
Simplifications of these equations for diluted mixtures give, for example,
Fick's first law of diffusion (/multiphysics/diffusion-equation) and the Nernst-
Planck equations for diffusion and migration.

The molar flux of a species i relative to a fixed coordinate system, denoted as

Ni, is obtained by adding the convective term, due to the velocity of the whole
mixture:

(9)

The resulting fluxes are used in the mass conservation equations for each
species in the solution:

(10)

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The sum of all mass fluxes, including the convective term, results in the
continuity equation for the mixture:

(11)

where the last term is necessarily zero due to the conservation of mass of an
individual chemical reaction. By identifying the sums as the density and mass
flux density, we get the mass continuity equation:

(12)

The convective term in the flux is the contribution to the flux of a species due
to the movement of the whole solution (see the figure above). For this reason,
convective flux takes place along the velocity streamlines of the solution for
all chemical species in the solution. Note that the sum of all the species' mass
fluxes, relative to the flux of the mixture, is zero if the mass-averaged velocity
is used as reference. The mass-averaged velocity is defined as:

(13)

where ∂i denotes the mass density of a species i. This implies that, in general,
the mass flux of each species is tightly coupled to the total mass velocity in a
mixture. In a strict definition, the mass average velocity of a mixture could be
obtained by formulating and solving the equations for the conservation of
momentum for each species in a mixture.

However, the interaction coefficients, required for such formulations, are

usually difficult to measure or calculate. Instead, equations for the
conservation of momentum for the whole mixture are usually defined. The
combination of the equations for the conservation of momentum and mass
for a mixture at low velocities (less than one third of the speed of sound),
yield the Navier-Stokes equations (/multiphysics/navier-stokes-equations). The

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solution of the Navier-Stokes equations gives the velocity field (a vector field)
that also determines the direction of the convective flux of all species in the
mixture.

The tight coupling between mass transport for each species and the
conservation of mass for the whole mixture is exemplified in the example
below. Oxygen in air is consumed at the surface of a catalyst and produces
liquid water that is removed from the gas phase in a gas diffusion electrode.
The consumption of oxygen causes a net velocity in the gas mixture (air).
Additionally, a nitrogen concentration gradient is formed in order to perfectly
balance the advective (or convective) flux of nitrogen with an opposite flux by
diffusion.

(h ps://cdn.comsol.com/cyclopedia/what-is-mass-transfer/ g_2.png)

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Surface plot of the nitrogen concentra on in a gas di usion electrode. The ux along the right ver cal edge,
plo ed in the x-y plot, shows that the di usive ux from the cataly c surface exactly compensates the convec ve

ux to this surface, generated by oxygen consump on at the catalyst's surface.

Due to the difficulties of numerically resolving steep gradients in potential,

mass transfer across phase boundaries is often expressed using difference
equations, instead of differential equations. This approximation implies that
the gradients, included in the driving forces, are linearized inside a fictitious
boundary layer (see the figure below). The thickness of the layer is then
defined as the distance from a phase boundary where the linearized
concentration gradient, starting from the concentration at the phase
boundary, reaches the bulk concentration. The definition of the boundary
layer also means that its thickness may be different for different species.

(h ps://cdn.comsol.com/cyclopedia/what-is-mass-transfer/ g_3.png)

Fic ve boundary layers inside and around a gas bubble in a liquid.

The mass transfer coefficient, km, for such an interface is defined as the
diffusivity divided by the boundary layer thickness, δ.

(14)
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An estimate of the relation between the boundary layer thickness and a

system’s typical length is given by the Sherwood number:

(15)

In this expression, L denotes a typical length for a system, such as the radius
of a pipe and the width of a channel. However, if the mass transport around a
gas bubble in a liquid is studied, then L may denote the radius of the bubble.
Since the thickness of the boundary layer depends on the convection just
outside an interface, the Sherwood number also gives a measurement of the
convective and diffusive fluxes to such an interface.

The boundary layer thickness at a liquid-gas interface for a rising bubble is of

the order of magnitude of 100 μm in the gas phase and around 10 μm in the
liquid phase.

The Sherwood number can also be defined as a function of the Reynolds and
Schmidt numbers. The Reynolds number gives an estimate of the ratio of
momentum transport by inertia to viscosity in a fluid:

(16)

where μ denotes viscosity and U denotes an average velocity. The Schmidt

number gives an estimate of the relation between viscosity and diffusivity in
a fluid:

(17)

The mass transfer coefficient can be estimated from the relation between the
Sherwood number and the Reynolds and Schmidt numbers. For example, for
forced convection along a flat plate, the following expression can be used:

(18)

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where floc denotes the local friction factor for flow along a flat plate. The
friction coefficient for different geometries is tabulated in literature and may
also be obtained experimentally. All the material properties and the average
velocity in the relation above are relatively easy to find in literature or
estimate from simple calculations. Once the Sherwood number is calculated,
then the mass transfer coefficient can be calculated, including the boundary
layer thickness, which is the parameter that is not easily estimated otherwise.
Note, though, that the above expression is only valid for flat plates.

Summary of Mass Transfer

The driving forces for mass transfer are relatively easy to define. These forces
give the expressions for the flux, which can be used in the equations for
conservation of mass. When these equations are discretized using a
numerical method and when the resulting numerical model equations are
solved, the results give the concentration distribution and fluxes in a system
as functions of the modeled space coordinates and time. The estimates of the
concentration and fluxes can be used to understand, design, optimize, and
control the system that is being studied.

In cases where the equations cannot easily be discretized and solved in a

detailed way, mass transfer coefficients may be used for obtaining an
estimate of concentrations and fluxes in a system, which are less detailed
than the one described above.

Published: January 14, 2015

Last modi ed: February 22, 2017

References

1. J.A. Wesselingh, R. Krishna, Mass Transfer in Multicomponent Mixtures, 1st edition, VSSD,
2000.
2. R.B. Bird , W.E. Stewart , and E.N. Lightfoot , Transport Phenomena, 2nd edition, John Wiley
& Sons, Inc., 2007.

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