Gus. Srp. Purif: Vol. IO. No. 1, pp.

41-46, 1996
Copyright :(: 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd
Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved
0950-4214/96 $15.00 + 0.00

0950-4214(95)00024-O
ELSEVlER

Modeling of gas absorption into turbulent films

with chemical reaction
Mohammad R. Riazi”

Chemical Engineering Department, Kuwait University, PO Box 5969, Safat 13060, Kuwait

A mathematical model has been developed to predict the rates of gas absorption in turbu-
lent falling liquid films with and without the first order homogeneous reaction and external
gas phase mass transfer resistance. The eddy viscosity model used to describe the flow
distribution is the van Driest model, modified in the outer region of the film by the use of
an eddy diffusivity deduced from gas absorption measurements. The results are given for
special cases to illustrate the effects of turbulence, reaction rate and gas phase resistances
on the concentration profiles and the rates of gas absorption. Copyright @ 1996 Elsevier
Science Ltd

Keywords: mathematical model; gas absorption; turbulent films

Nomenclature Sh Sherwood number (= k,.z/D)

u Liquid velocity in axial direction
A Damping length constant (26v(p/~o)) Distance normal to the surface
I’
C Concentration of dissolved gas in the liquid Z Axial distance
C’ Equilibrium concentration of gas in liquid
C.5 Concentration of gas at the free surface Greek symbols
D Molecular diffusion coefficient
Acceleration due to gravity Reaction rate constant (= k(v/g2)‘13)
g : Liquid loading
g, Gravity constant (= 1 in SI unit system)
k First-order reaction rate constant s Liquid film thickness
Mass transfer coefficient in liquid phase ED Eddy diffusivity
k,
Mass transfer coefficient in gas phase EM Kinematic eddy viscosity
kG
K’ Constant (= 0.4) 0 Surface tension
K’ Constant P Liquid density
L’ Prandtl mixing length /l Liquid viscosity
m Dimensionless rate of absorption V Liquid kinematic viscosity
N Dimensionless parameter (= kc/D[u2/g]‘/3) TO Shear stress at the free surface
RC? Reynolds number
Superscript
SC Schmidt number (= v/D)
SC, Turbulent Schmidt number (= EM/ED) Non-dimensionalized quantity

Introduction laminar falling liquid films has been studied in some

detail, the c&e bf turbulent flow, especially when
Development of mathematical models to predict the rate
chemical reaction is involved, has received less attention.
of gas absorption into liquid films is important in the
The problem of gas absorption without chemical
design and operation of falling film reactors, which are
reaction in laminar films was solved by Olbricht and
widely used for gas-liquid reactions such as sulfonation
Wild2 using the series expansion method. For the case of
or chlorination, as well as in gas separation and purifica-
gas absorption into laminar films with chemical reaction,
tion units’. From a review of the published literature on
the governing differential equations were solved by both
wetted-wall columns, it is evident that while the problem
analytical and numerical techniques as shown by
of gas absorption with or without chemical reaction in
Riazi3,4. The effect of gas phase mass transfer resistances
on the rate of gas absorption for laminar liquid films was
*Fax: (+965) 4839498; email: riazi@kucOl .kuniv.edu.kw previously discussed by Riazi3. The effect of turbulence

41
42 Modeling of gas absorption: M.R. Riazi

in the gas phase as well as the effects of interfacial drag in the axial direction is negligible. Under these condi-
at the gas-liquid interface on the rate of gas absorption tions, the steady state mass balance on the absorbing
were shown by Riazi and Fagri4. The problem of species in the liquid phase for turbulent flow is:
physical gas absorption into a turbulent liquid film was
treated to some extent by Lamourelle and Sandall’.
Based on the gas absorption measurements, they
(1)
obtained an expression for the liquid phase eddy diffu-
sivity in the region near the free surface. Menez and The coordinate system used and the physical description
of the absorbing film are shown in Figure 1. The term u is
Sandall studied the problem of gas absorption accom-
the axial velocity of liquid film and can be found from
panied by first-order chemical reaction in a liquid
flowing in fully developed turbulent flow. They obtained the momentum equation after neglecting the pressure
asymptotic solutions for which solute concentrates only gradient and axial terms:
a short distance into the liquid film, because of a slow
rate of diffusion or very high rate of reaction where only g[(YfEdg+g=o
eddy diffusivity in the region near the free surface was
used to describe the turbulence in the liquid film. The solution of the above equations for momentum and
The main objective of this work is to show the effects mass transfer requires the specifications of the boundary
of turbulence in liquid falling films on the rate of gas and initial conditions:
absorption when combined with chemical reaction and
gas phase mass transfer resistances. For our work, the at the inlet, z = 0
eddy diffusivity given by Lamourelle and Sandall is
c=o (3)
used for the region near the free surface, while the van
Driest viscosity model is used for the region near the at the wall, y = 0
wall.
u= 0

Formulation aC 0
-_= (4)
Let us consider the system shown in Figure 1. A liquid
ay
initially free of the absorbing species at z = 0 flows down at the interface, y = 6
the surface of a vertical and impermeable wall under the
influence of gravity. The absorbing species are absorbed au
by the liquid where it undergoes a (pseudo) first-order 5=O
irreversible chemical reaction. It is assumed that the gas
phase concentration of absorbing species is constant and
p(c*_c)
the interfacial shear stress at the gas-liquid interface is
neglected. Furthermore, it is assumed that the diffusion where 6 is the film thickness, C’ is the concentration in
equilibrium with gas phase, and ko is the mass transfer
coefficient in the gas phase. Upon integration of Equa-
tion (2) with the corresponding boundary conditions

QIEI given in Equations (4) and (5), the velocity profile can be
obtained:

L!=

1
Liquid
In the above equations, if flow is laminar then
EM=&Eg=o.
Introducing the following non-dimensional variables

will transform Equations (l), (3), (4), (5) and (6) to the
following form:

Figure 1 Schematic of a falling liquid film showing the coord-

inate system
 Modeling of gas absorption: M.R. Riazi 43

C=O (8) Non-dimensionalization transfers the above equation in

the following form:
atJ=O

ac 1+ 1 + 0.64~*[1 - exp(-J/26)]*(‘1 -p/6)

3-O EM = (12)
2
at J = S
Lamourelle and Sandal15, by measuring the mass
ac N transfer coefficient for the liquid phase for gas absorp-
T&y=zp(‘-c) (10) tion into a turbulent liquid Aow down a wetted column,
obtained the following pattern distribution for sn at a
and temperature of 25°C

U= v (1 -y/J) dq’ Ed = 0.284Rei.678(~ - y)2

(11) (13)
./0 EM

where a = k(v/g2)‘/‘, N = kC/D(v2/g)‘i3 and cM = 1+ in which Ed is in ft2 h-‘. In order to generalize the above
EMfu.
equation to temperatures other than 25°C and to liquids
Note that when the mass transfer resistance in the gas other than water, it must be rendered dimensionless in a
phase is negligible, N = 00, the boundary condition manner which Levich8 has indicated:
given in Equation (10) reduces to c = 1 at 7 = &.
In order to solve the equations for the turbulent case,
it is necessary to introduce some empirical profiles for
the eddy diffusivity. Some typical models for the falling
where k” is a constant and 0 is the surface tension. The
film are introduced by Gutierrez-Gonzalez et al.‘.
above constant can be calculated from Equation (13),
Accurate specifications of the eddy diffusivity close to
which yields the following result:
the wall and also close to the free surface are much more
important than in the middle of the film, due to low
resistances in the central region. It is customary that for -ED = 6.4 x lo-“: Rc’.~‘*(~ - y)*
u <
modelling Ed the flow is divided into two regions, an
inner region where the turbulent transport is dominated
For computation purposes, upon non-dimensionaliza-
by the presence of the wall and an outer wall-like region.
tion this reduces to:
The model proposed here is described by use of the van
Driest model’, modified in the outer region of the film by l/3pv314
use of an eddy diffusivity deduced by Lamourelle and &=1+6.47~10~~~ Re'.678($__ y)2
(14)
Sandall from gas absorption measurements. g,a62~3
Various assumptions have been made in order to
describe the mean velocity distribution near the wall. A The Reynolds number is defined as:
popular kinematic eddy viscosity model for this region,
as mentioned before, is provided by van Driest’ who
assumed the following modified expression for the
Re=~=4tpudy (15)
p I-1
Prandtl mixing length theory:
in dimensionless form, Equation (15) becomes:
L’ = K!y[l - exp( i)]
n
where A is a damping length constant defined as Re = 4 iidj (16)
26vm and K’ = 0.4. For the falling film van Driest sn
viscosity is used in the inner layer of film liquid. There-
fore for the inner region: Therefore, the feature of the resulting model is the van
Driest’ distribution modified in the outer region by the
Lamourelle and Sandall’ model. It is a common practice
to use a constant turbulent Schmidt number in the
boundary layer analysis and for the present analysis
SC, = 1 was used.
The overall mass transfer coefficient from the interface
du -_v + Jz/’ + 4L’2 + 4L’“(S - y)g
1I
&J=
-_v + J$
2L’2
+ 4L’2 + 4L’2(6 - y)g
to the inlet liquid film is defined as:

EM = (17)
2
44 Modeling of gas absorption: M.R. Riazi

where C, is the surface concentration. The Sherwood
number can be calculated from the following equation:
The overall dimensionless mass transfer rate, #z, is:
fi=
a$j=idr
s laminar films (6 = 6.66 or Re = 59.1) for a = 0 (physical
The differential Equation (7) was put into a finite differ-
ence form using an implicit scheme. The Crank-
Nicolson method was used for Equation (7) which
yielded a three-diagonal matrix. Four hundred incre-
ments were chosen in the J direction, and using a step-
by-step advancing technique (? was calculated at
different values of Z.
at z = lo6 is shown in Figure 6. As N decreases concen-
tration decreases too. A graphical relation between 8 and
Re is shown in Figure 7. Transition from laminar to
turbulent flow is at Re = 1200- 1300, for laminar flow,
(18) Re = ($)6* and for turbulent flow for values of s> 60,
Re can be related to 6 by a linear relation of
Re = 63.836- 1383 with less than 1% deviation. Mass
transfer rates (m) are shown in Figure 8 for special cases.
The two lower curves represent rates of absorption for
(19)
absorption alone) and o = 1 respectively. For turbulent
flow (8 = 100, Re = 5000) the overall mass transfer rates
are shown for a = 0, 1 and 10. As can be seen, the effect
0.8 -

Results and discussion

The numerical values which were used in our calcula- 0.6 -

tions were: u = 8.63 x 10e7 m* s-‘, p = 996.3 kg cme3,

F
D= 1.95x lo-9 m2 s-l, L&=442, g=9.81 m s-*, and
g = 0.0689 N m-t. In most of our calculations we used 0.4 -
S = 100 which is equivalent to the Reynolds number of
5000. For the physical absorption (Q = 0) development
of the concentration profile is shown in Figure 2,
0.2 -
calculations were carried up to z = lo6 which is equiva- 5 x 10’

lent to the column length of z = 7.24 m. For the case of

laminar flow, development of the concentration profile 10’
I I I 1 I I
for physical absorption for 6 = 6.66 (Re = 59.1) is shown 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
in Figure 3. The relation between two different values of Fla

$1 and $2 is Figure 2 Development of the concentration profile for no resist-

ance in the gas phase and without chemical reaction for s= 100
- l/3 (Re = 5000)
21 61
-= _
22 0 62
Thus

z(S = 6.66) = 0.4052(6 = 100)

In Figure 3 values of z correspond to the same dimen-

z = 20250(5 x 10’)
sional axial distance z as in Figure 2. Results shown in 0.6 -
Figure 3 are in good agreement (less than 0.5% devia-
tion) with the analytical solution of Olbricht and Wild*.
Figure 4 shows the same result for turbulent flow when
0.4
8 = 200 (Re = 11383). Comparison of Figures 2 and 3
indicates that turbulent flow concentration is less than in
laminar flow while the slope of ac/a~ at free surface in
turbulent is greater than in laminar flow. Therefore, as is 0.2
expected the rate of gas absorption in turbulent flow is
much higher than that in laminar flow.
The effect of chemical reaction on the concentration 0
profile is shown in Figure 5. Comparison of Figures 5
and 2 shows how the presence of a reaction reduces the
Figure 3 Development of the concentration profile for no resist-
concentration of the absorbing species. The effect of ance in the gas phase and without chemical reaction for 6= 6.66
mass transfer resistance (N) on the concentration profile (Re=59.1)
 Modeling of gas absorption: M.R. Riazi 45

0.8 -
T=2 x 106 0.8 -
N=CQ
4

0.6 -
3

0. ' I I I I I I 1 I
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
513
Figure 4 Development of the concentration profile for no resist- Figure 6 Concentration profile with gas phase resistance and
ance in the gas phase and without chemical reaction for 6 = 200 cr=l for6=100at.T=106
(Re = 11 383)

10000 -

8000 -
0.6
RC. t
6000 - I
I
1
I

0
0 0.2 0.4 _ - 0.6 0.8 1
Y/6
Figure 5 Development of the concentration profile for no Figure 7 Relation between the dimensionless film thickness, 8,
resistance in the gas phase and a = 1 for 6 = 100 and Reynolds number

of the chemical reaction on the absorption rate in the
laminar film is greater than that in the turbulent flow.
The absorption rate for N = 1 and 01 = 1 is also shown in
Figure 8. For higher Reynolds number (8= 200 or
Re = 11383) the absorption rate for a = 0 is also shown
in Figure 8. It should be noted that in Figure 8 for
different dimensionless film thickness, 8, corresponding
values of z for the same axial distance, z, are different. In
fact for b = 6.66, ~(8 = 6.66) = 0.4052(6 = loo), and for
8 = 200, ~(6 = 200) = 1.262(6 = 100).
The eddy diffusivity and eddy viscosity models
proposed in this study may also be applied to laminar
liquid films in order to consider effects of wavy film flow
as discussed by Gutierrez-Gonzalez et al.‘. This would
be the next phase of this study.
Conclusions
The numerical solution of gas absorption into laminar
and turbulent falling films with the combined effects of
homogeneous, irreversible first-order chemical reaction
and gas phase mass transfer resistance has been
presented. Results are given in the form of concentration
profile development and the rate of gas absorption. It
has been shown that the relative effect of the chemical
reaction on the absorption rate in the laminar flow is
46 Modeling of gas absorption: M.R. Riazi

106b ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ “‘I I 11’1’1’1 It has been shown that in turbulent flow, when Reynolds
Q = 10 number or the film thickness increase, absorption rates
1 also increase. With the gas phase mass transfer resist-
II
ance, the absorption rates can be significantly smaller
z = 200 - than those for the case of no resistance, particularly
a==0 when the parameter N is small,
,A

Figure 8 Gas absorption rates in laminar and turbulent
and without chemical reaction
greater than that in the turbulent flow, while the
absolute mass transfer rates in the turbulent case are
significantly larger than those observed in laminar flow.
References
Gutierrez-Gonzalez, J., Mans-Teixido, C. and Costa-Lopez, J.
Improved mathematical model for a falling film sulfonation reactor
Ind Eng Chem Res (1988) 27(9) 1701-1707
Olbricbt, W.E. and Wild, J.D. Diffusion from the free surface into a
liquid film in laminar flow over defined shapes Chem Engng Sci
(1969) 24 2.5
Riazi, M.R. Estimation of rates and enhancement factors in gas
absorption with chemical reaction and gas phase mass transfer
resistances Chem Eng Sci (1986) 41( 11) 2925
Riazi, M.R. and Fagri, A. Effect of interfacial drag on gas
absorption with chemical reactions AIChE J (1986) 32(4) 696
Lamourelle, A.P. and Sandall, O.C. Gas absorption into a turbulent
films with liquid Chem Engng Sci (1972) 27 1035-1043
Menez, G.D. and Sandall, O.C. Gas absorption accompanied by
first-order chemical reaction in turbulent liquids Ind Eng Chem
Fundum (1974) 13(l) 72-76
van Driest, E.R. On turbulent flow near the wall J Aero Sci (1956)
23 1007
Levicb, V.C. Physiochemical Hydrodynamics Prentice Hall, Engle-
wood Cliffs, New Jersey (1962) 691