Physicochemical Processes in Environmental Engineering ENVE 4340, Spring 2009 Problem Set #5 Out: Topic: Thurs, Feb 19,

Due: Thursday, March 5 Packed tower design and operation

1. Design a packed tower to remove benzene from a 0.1 m3/s flow at 15 C. The packing material will be 3.5" plastic tripacks having a Cf of 14 and a specific surface area of 138 m2/m3. Use a gas pressure drop of 50 N/m2-m. Choose an L'/G' and a G' corresponding to an x-axis value of 1.09 and a y-axis value of 0.0033 on the gas pressure drop correlation. Compound properties are tabulated below. Specify the liquid and gas loading, the stripping factor, the column diameter and packing height required. Verify your spreadsheet model using hand calculations and the example in the Crittenden text. 2. Is it possible to design a packed tower to remove MTBE under the same conditions as described in Problem 1? Why or why not? If not, propose a new set of conditions and prepare a design using your validated spreadsheet model. Specify the liquid and gas loading, the stripping factor, the column diameter and packing height required. 3. Consider the following scenario. You design and construct a packed tower to remove benzene from contaminated water, as in Problem 1 above. Later, the water supply becomes contaminated with MTBE at a level of 2.25 ppm. Your client wants to know if the reactor will meet drinking water requirements of 15 ppb for MTBE. If not, is it possible to improve the level of treatment provided by the original design? Data Compound Benzene MTBE CIN/COUT 1500 1500 KH (m3w/ m3air) 0.133 0.0128 DL m2/s 7.6110-10 7.8610-10 DG m2/s 8.7710-6 7.510-6

4. Using the Onda correlation, plot the liquid phase resistance as a fraction of the total mass transfer resistance as a function of Henrys constant for a range of Henrys constants from 0.01 to 100 [m3/m3]. Assume the same temperature, loading conditions and packing material as in Problem 1. Assume representative gas and liquid diffusivities (e.g., use those for benzene). Use an arithmetic coordinate for the y-axis, and a log coordinate for the x-axis. For typical groundwater contaminants having Henrys constants ranging from 0.1 to 1 [m3/m3], comment on the significance of gas-side mass transfer resistance.