DESIGN OF THERMAL SYSTEMS

MECE 521

UNIT OPERATION

July 2019
CLASSIFICATION OF SOME UNIT OPERATIONS
Fluid flow: transportation of fluid from one point
to another.
Heat transfer: accumulation and transfer of heat
from one place to another.
Drying: volatile liquids e.g. water are removed
from solid materials.
Evaporation: evaporation of a volatile solvent e.g.
water from a nonvolatile solute such as salt or
any other material in solution.
Absorption: a component is removed from a gas
stream by treatment with a liquid.
Adsorption: a component of a gas or liquid stream
is removed and adsorbed by a solid adsorbent.
Distillation: components of a liquid mixture are
separated by boiling because of their differences
in vapour pressure.
Crystallization: removal of a solute such as a salt
from a solution by precipitating the solute from
the solution.
Mechanical-physical separations: separation of
solids, liquids or gases by mechanical means e.g.
filtration, settling, and size reduction.
 TRANSPORT PROCESSES

Momentum transfer: transfer of momentum

occurs in moving media e.g. in fluid flow,
sedimentation and mixing.
Heat transfer: transfer of heat from one place to
another and it occurs in units of heat exchange,
drying, evaporation, distillation etc.
Mass transfer: mass is transferred from one
phase to another distinct phase and includes
distillation, absorption, adsorption etc.
 GENERAL EXPRESSIONS
pV =nRT
where p = absolute pressure in N/m2
V = volume of gas in m3 ; n = kg mol of gas
T = absolute temperature in K and
R = gas constant (8314.3 kg.m2/kg mol.s2.K)
Dalton’s law of total pressure
P = pA + pB + pC + ………+ pn
No of moles of a component A in a mixture is:
pA pA
xA = P =
p A + p B + p C + ...
HEAT TRANSFER APPLICATIONS
 EVAPORATOR: The typical evaporator is made
up of three functional sections: the heat
exchanger, the evaporating section, and the
separator
 Evaporators produce make up water for boilers
from raw water having a high solids content.
Modern boilers need evaporated water to
prevent scaling or fouling of the heating
surfaces.
TYPES OF EVAPORATORS

 Single effect evaporator

 The concentrated solution in vessel is to be heated

and evaporated by a heater and coil arrangement.
The vapour is usually condensed externally. The
single effect evaporator can be fundamentally
wasteful if the specific enthalpies in both the
product and vapour are not used.
TYPES OF EVAPORATORS

 Multiple effect evaporation

 Some of the specific enthalpy of water from the
product and some of the specific enthalpy of
steam from the vapour can be extracted/used
at lower pressures.
MULTIPLE EFFECT EVAPORATION

 forward feed multi-effect evaporation

MULTIPLE EFFECT EVAPORATION

 backward feed multi-effect evaporation

DRYERS

 There is no fundamental difference between

evaporating and drying processes. In both, the
objective is to remove a certain amount of
unwanted liquid or moisture.
 The output of a dryer is measured by the weight
of dried product.
TYPES OF DRYING

 Mechanical Drying: The first part of many

drying processes is to remove as much water
as possible by mechanical means, so that the
steam heated dryer shall have little work to do
as is possible.
 It is more economical to dry mechanically than
with heat, but mechanical drying has a limiting
point. For example using a press.
TYPES OF DRYING
 Hot Air Dyers:. The air has to perform two main
functions namely; to heat up the material and
moisture until the latter is evaporated and then
to carry away the water vapour from the surface
of the material.
 Heater Batteries: Hot air dryers consist
essentially of one or more heater batteries
through which air is forced by a fan and then
directed onto the material being dried.
TYPES OF DRYING

 Heater Batteries
TYPES OF DRYING
 Wool dryers: Hot air dryers are also used for
drying wool after souring and dyeing. In some
machines, the wool passes on a conveyor and
hot air blows through or across it.
 Jet impingement dryers
 Laundry tumblers: The laundry tumbler is a hot
air dryer in which the damp goods are rotated
in a perforated basket through which hot air
from a heater battery is blown.
TYPES OF DRYING
 Spray dryers: Liquid and semi-liquid materials
such as milk and many chemicals are dried into
powder by spray drying. In this process, the
liquid is sprayed in the form of small globules
into a chamber through which hot air from a
heater battery is passing.
 Steam dryers: A steam dryer separates water
particles from flowing steam by two distinct
methods
TYPES OF DRYERS
HEAT TRANSFER IN DRYING

 Determined by the rates at which heat energy

can be transferred to the water or to the ice in
order to provide the latent heats.
HEAT TRANSFER IN DRYING

𝑞 = ℎ𝑠 𝐴 𝑇𝑎 − 𝑇𝑠
Where: q is the heat transfer rate in J s-1,
hs is the surface heat-transfer coefficient J m-2 s-
1 °C-1,

A is the area through which heat flow is taking

place, m2, Ta is the air temperature and Ts is the
temperature of the surface which is drying, °C.
DRYER EFFICIENCIES

 Useful when assessing the performance of a

dryer, looking for improvements, and in making
comparisons between the various classes of
dryers which may be alternatives for a
particular drying operation.
 Dryer efficiency is a simple ratio of the
minimum energy needed to the energy actually
consumed.
DRYER EFFICIENCIES

 Another useful measure for air drying such as

in spray dryers, is to look at a heat balance over
the air, treating the dryer as adiabatic with no
exchange of heat with the surroundings.
 So this adiabatic air-drying efficiency, h, can
be defined by:
h = (T1 - T2)/(T1 - Ta)
CONSERVATION OF MASS

 The law states that mass cannot be created or

destroyed (except nuclear reactions).
Therefore,
 Input = output + accumulation

 In steady state, there is no accumulation and

 Input = output
To solve a material balance problem, follow these steps:
1. Sketch a simple diagram of the process.
2. Write the chemical equations involved (if any)
3. Select a basis for calculation
4. Make a material balance
Example: In the concentration of orange juice a fresh
extracted and strained juice containing 7.08 wt %
solids is fed to a vacuum evaporator. In the
evaporator, water is removed and the solids content
increased to 58 wt % solids. For 1000 kg/h entering
calculate the amounts of the outlet streams of
concentrated juice and water.
To make a material balance we have,
1000 = W + C (1)
A component balance on solids will give,
1000 (7.08/100) = W (0) + C (58/100) (2)
Solving equations 1 & 2 simultaneously, we have
C = 122.1 kg/h and
W = 877.9 kg/h
Problem:
In a process producing KNO3 salt, 100 kg/h of a
feed solution containing 20 wt % KNO3 is fed to
an evaporator, which evaporates some water at
422 K to produce a 50 wt % KNO3 solution. This
is then fed to a crystallizer at 311 K, where
crystals containing 96 wt % KNO3 are removed.
The saturated solution containing 37.5 wt % KNO3
is recycled to the evaporator. Calculate the
amount of recycle stream R in kg/h and the
product stream of crystals P in kg/h.
Solution:
Making an overall balance on the entire process for KNO3 and solve
for P directly we have:
1000 (0.20) = W (0) + P (0.96)
P = 208.3 kg crystals /h
Using a balance on the crystallizer, we obtain for the total balance,
S = R + 208.3 (1)
For a KNO3 on the crystallizer,
S (0.50) = R (0.375) + 208.3 (0.96) (2)
Solving equations 1 & 2 simultaneously,
R = 766.6 kg/h and S = 974.9 kg/h
Problem:
An evaporator is used to concentrate cane sugar
solutions. A feed of 10000 kg/d of a solution
containing 38 wt % sugar is evaporated,
producing a 74 wt % solution. Calculate the
weight solution produced and amount of water
removed.
Problem:
Fish is processed into fish meal and used as a
supplementary protein food. In the processing, the
oil is first extracted to produce wet fish cake
containing 80 wt % water and 20 wt % bone-dry
cake. This wet cake feed is dried in rotary drum
dryers to give a “dry” fish cake product containing
40 wt % water. Finally the product is finely ground
and packed. Calculate the kg/h of wet cake feed
needed to produce 1000 kg/h of “dry” fish cake
product.