Evaporation

Historical background
Jakob, M. and W. Fritz

When steam flows through a tube which is submerged in a

pool of liquid, minute bubbles of vapour.

The heat in the liquid flows toward the bubble,

causing evaporation from its inner surface into
itself.

The heat passing through the tube

surface where no bubbles form
enters the surrounding liquid by
convection.

When sufficient buoyancy has been developed, the

bubble breaks loose from the forces holding it to the
tube and rises to the surface of the liquid pool.
Objective

Inform the main characteristics of the

evaporation and its importance.
Description of the
phenomenon Evaporation is a unit operations used to
increase concentrations of process solutions.
• It is also used for separation of a liquid in a solid-liquid or
liquid-liquid solution.
• Involves equipment such as: heat exchangers, process
pumps and vacuum systems.
 Classification of vaporizing
equipment

 Boilers:are tubular apparatus, convert fuel energy

into latent heat vaporization.

 Vaporizing exchangers or evaporators: convert the

latent or sensible heat of one fluid into the latent
heat of vaporization of another.
Evaporator design involves determination of:

Flow rates of products.

 Amount and conditions of heating steam.
Area of heat transfer needed.
Type of evaporator.
Evaporator types
Boiling Point Elevation (BPE) or
Boiling Point Rise (BPR)

• Solutions have higher boiling points than pure water. The increase of boiling
point over the pure water is called Boiling Point Elevation (BPE).

• BPE is high for concentrated solutions.

• BPE is calculated from empirical.

• Large liquid head also causes BPE.

• Neglecting the impact of BPE can yield wrong design of evaporator.

 Example

35 wt% NaOH solution at 6 psia

From Steam Table at 6 psia

Boiling point of pure water
(Tw) = 170 F

During chart
Tw and 35%

Boiling point of solution

(Tsol) = 210 F
BPE = 210 F - 170 F= 40 F
Applications

 Manufacturing of drugs.
 Manufacturing of biological products.
 Manufacturing of food products.
 Manufacturing of demineralised water.
 Solved example

A single-effect evaporator is used to concentrate 7kg/s of a

solution from 10 to 50 per cent solids. Steam is available at
205 kN/m2 and evaporation takes place at 13.5 kN/m2 . If the
overall coefficient of heat transfer is 3 kW/m2, estimate the
heating surface required and the amount of steam used if the
feed to the evaporator is at 294 K and the condensate leaves
the heating space at 352.7 K. The specific heats of 10 and 50
per cent solutions are 3.76 and 3.14 kJ/kg.
Assuming that the steam is dry and saturated from Steam Tables:
(Steam)
At P= 205 kN/m2
Steam temp= 394 K
Enthalpy at 394K = 2530 kJ/kg.

(Evaporation)
At P=13.5 kN/m2
Water boils= 325 K Thus the feed, containing 10 per cent solids, has to
Enthalpy at 325K= 2594kJ/kg. be heated from 294 to 325 K at which temperature
the evaporation takes place.

In the feed, mass of dry solids = (7 × 10)/100 = 0.7 kg/s

and, for x kg/s of water in the product:

(0.7 × 100)/(0.7 + x) = 50
from which: x=0.7 kg/s

Thus: water to be evaporated= (7-0.7)-0.7=5.6 kg/s

Using a datum of 273 K:
Heat entering with the feed = (7.0 × 3.76)(294 − 273) = 552.7 kW
Heat leaving with the product = (1.4 × 3.14)(325 − 273) = 228.6 kW
Heat leaving with the evaporated water = (5.6 × 2594) = 14, 526 kW

Thus:

Heat transferred from the steam = (14526 + 228.6) − 552.7 = 14, 202 kW
The enthalpy of the condensed steam leaving at 352.7 K = 4.18(352.7 − 273) = 333.2 kJ/kg
The heat transferred from 1 kg steam = (2530 − 333.2) = 2196.8 kJ/kg
and hence:
Steam required = (14, 202/2196.8) = 6.47 kg/s
As the preheating of the solution and the sub-cooling of the
condensate represent but a small proportion of the heat load, the
temperature driving force may be taken as the difference between
the temperatures of the condensing steam and the evaporating
water, or:

ΔT =(394−325)=69 K

Thus:

Heat transfer area

A = Q/U*ΔT
= 14, 202/(3 × 69) = 68.6 m2
 CONCLUSIONS

 Evaporation, in a technical sense, denotes the

conversion of a liquid into a vapor for the purpose of
separating it from another liquid of higher boiling point,
or from a concentrated solution, or solid which is
dissolved in it.
 Its
application is wide in diverse areas of the industry,
converting it into a unitary operation of great utility.
 REFERENCES

1. Donald Q. Kern. (1965). Process Heat Transfer. Japan:

McGraw-Hill. P.P 375-383

2. Vodopivec Kuri, A. A. (2011). Diseño integral a escala piloto,

de una unidad didáctica de evaporación de doble efecto de
tubos verticales cortos, para el laboratorío de operaciones
unitarias del ICQA. Ecuador: ESPOL.

3. Sahin Laboratory [ExtremeBio]. (2015, june 16). Renewable

energy from evaporating water. [Video file]. Recovered from