StripperAbsorber Diagrams

Tore Haug-Warberg Dept. of Chemical Engineering September 12th, 2005

Stripper and absorber columns have much in common with their binary distillation counterparts: The gas and liquid phases1 ow in a counter-current patV1 L0 tern across a nite number of physical trays (or a structured packing) where the two phases are mixed thorV2 oughly. The number of thermodynamic equilibrium L1 stages reached in the column is an important separation parameter. Furthermore, the total molar ows of the liquid and gas phases are nearly constant in an adiVn abatic column section with no external feed. The difLn1 ferences are primarily that strippers and absorbers lack Vn+1 reboiler and condensation units, and that they involve Ln at least three chemical components (inert gas, inert liquid, and a transported chemical species) whereas a distillation column works for binary mixtures. We shall in this paper investigate the McCabeThiele diagram to calculate stripper and absorber columns alike. But, VN since we are going to deal with three component mixLN1 tures certain simplications must be made with regard to the underlying vaporliquid equilibrium model. The VN+1 LN basic assumption is that the gas and liquid streams are inert phases which means the gas B does not dissolve in liquid C, and that the liquid does not evaporate into F 1: Countercurrent stripper or gas. The inert streams will by denition obey a constant absorber column. molar overow, although the reason for this is totally dierent from a distillation column where the energy balance plays a dominant role. The third component A, which is the chemical species we want either to collect or to remove, is assumed to be in thermodynamic equilibrium across the gasliquid interface2.
The term gas is used to signify a permanent (supercritical) gas, thereas vapor means a condensable uid. 2This is sometimes referred to as a pseudo-binary equilibrium system: There are three components involved in the calculation but only two on each side of the phase boundary A + B(gas) A + C(liq)
1
1

The McCabeThiele diagram represents a graphical solution to the classical separation problem of N ideal equilibrium stages connected with countercurrent gas and liquid ows as illustrated in Fig.1. The calculations will be quite similar to the binary distillation problem except that the operating line is a non-linear function of composition this time3. 1. The operating line(s) Let V and L be the (constant) ow rates of the inert gas and the liquid streams. For a pseudo-binary system the true phase ows can be calculated as L V L0 = V1 = 1 x0 1 y1 . . . . . . L V LN = VN+1 = 1 xN 1 yN+1 where x0 , . . . xN and y1 , . . . , yN+1 are the liquid and gaseous compositions of the transported species A. The component balance over the top section of the column is: yi Vi + x0 L0 = y1 V1 + xi1 Li1 Inserting the ow relations above yields the equation: y1 x0 yi xi1 +L =V +L V 1 y1 1 x0 1 yi 1 xi1 The operating line becomes: y1 L x0 L xi1 yi = + , i [1, N + 1] (Top) 1 yi 1 y1 V 1 x0 V 1 xi1 It is easily seen that yi is a non-linear function4 of xi1 except for the asymptotic condition L L lim yi = y1 x0 + xi1 x,y0 V V Deriving the operating line for the top section was an arbitrary choice, and we can without further arguments write an equivalent equation for the bottom section: yi yN+1 L xN L xi1 (Bottom) = + , i [1, N + 1] 1 yi 1 yN+1 V 1 xN V 1 xi1
The operating line will be a straight line for dilute systems, but in the general case it is curved. 4It would be natural to dene the transformed concentration functions y y/(1 y) and x x/(1 x) which makes the operating line linear in a y , x -plot (the equilibrium line is curved anyway), but this does not appear to be the standard procedure in this world.
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1. THE OPERATING LINE(S)

Either Eq. Top or Eq. Bottom can be used to establish the operating line when the liquidgas ratio L /V is known in addition to either the inlet concentrations x0 , y1 or the outlet concentrations xN+1 , xN . It does not make any dierence whether the column is a stripper or an absorber because the form of the equations are the same in both cases. If all four concentrations are known it is possible to calculate L /V explicitly. A combination of Eqs. Top and Bottom yields y1 yN+1 1yN+1 L 1y1 = x0 (Total) xN V 1xN 1x0 Figures 2 and 3 show representative diagrams for the stripping and absorption of SO2 in water at 20 C. Note carefully that the equilibrium lines are identical in the two gures, although their positions relative to the operating lines are opposite. The operating lines are also signicantly curved due to the relatively high concentrations of SO2 . Of special interest to the physical chemist is that the equilibrium line is non-linear over the entire concentration range. This is due to the electrolytic behavior of SO2 in the diluted region, which makes the system deviate from the stripping and absorption of molecular species in water where Henrys law applies at low concentrations.

0.20 Top 0.15

ySO2

0.10

N = 8.33

0.05 Bottom 0.002 0.004 0.006 0.008 0.01 xSO2

0 0

F 2: SO2 -stripper with x0 = 0.008, xN = 0.001, y1 = 0.18 and yN+1 = 0.01 (L /V = 24.3). 0.20

Bottom

0.15 N = 9.76

ySO2

0.10

0.05 Top 0 0

0.002

0.004 xSO2

0.006

0.008

F 3: SO2 -absorber with x0 = 0.001, xN = 0.006, y1 = 0.04 and yN+1 = 0.18 (L /V = 28.0).