MATERIAL BALANCES

LEARNING OUTCOMES
1. Develop a conceptual understanding of
material balances
2. Familiarize the features of open, closed, steady-
state, and unsteady-state systems
3. Express in words how to form the material
balances for processes involving single or
multiple components
4. Familiarize yourself with the strategy to assist
you in solving material balance problems
 First Law of Matter
• Conservation Law of Mass – Matter is neither
created nor destroyed
• Material balances basically involve
accounting—not for money but for material
• Terms used in the application of first law:
Initial condition The amount of a material (e.g., mass
or moles) in a process at the beginning of the
processing interval
Input Material (e.g., mass, moles) that enters the
system
• Material balance The balance equation that
corresponds to the conservation of mass.
• Final condition The amount of material (e.g.,
mass or moles) in a process at the end of the
processing interval
• Output Material (e.g., mass, moles) that leaves
the system
• Steady-state system A system in which all the
conditions (e.g., temperature, pressure, amount
of material) remain constant with time.
• System Any arbitrary portion of or whole
process that is considered for analysis.
• System boundary The closed line that encloses
the portion of the process that is to be analyzed.
• Transient system A system in which one or more
of the conditions (e.g., temperature, pressure,
amount of material) of the system vary with
time; also known as an unsteady-state system.
• Accumulation An increase or decrease in the
material (e.g., mass or moles) in a system.
• Closed system A system that does not have
material crossing the system boundary.
• Component balance A material balance on a
single chemical component in a system.
• Flow system An open system
• Generation The appearance of a component in a
system because of chemical reaction
• Material Balances for a Single Component with
the absence of reaction
• Example: Water Balance for a Lake
Water balances on a lake can be used to
evaluate the effect of groundwater infiltration,
evaporation, or precipitation on the lake.
Prepare a water balance, in symbols, for a lake,
including the physical processes indicated in the
given figure:
• Solution: Using the figure below as basis

• no reaction for the water in the system.

• Let SR(t1) and SR(t2) as the initial and final
amounts of water in the lake based on the idea
that the amount of water in the lake during the
time interval may change
• an overall balance on the water in the lake, so
the system should be the lake.
• the basis should be the specified (but
unknown) time interval, which is the same as
picking one of the labeled flows
• Then the water balance is
SR(t2) – SR(t1) = R1 – R2 + P – E – W
 Characteristics of Systems
• system we mean any arbitrary portion of or a
whole process you want to consider for analysis.
• System boundary – is the limit of the system,
lime that encloses the portion of the process you
want to analyze.
• Closed System or Process - material neither
enters nor leaves the vessel; that is, no material
crosses the system boundary
• Comparison of (a) closed and (b) open
systems
• Changes can take place inside the closed
system, but no mass exchange occurs with the
surroundings.
• In a steady-state system the accumulation is
zero. What goes in must come out
• Figure below shows (a) Initial and (b) final
states of an unsteady-state system
 Material Balances for a System with More than One
Component
• Almost all real systems involve multicomponent
mixtures that require a slightly different
approach for solving material balance problems
than a system with a single component.
• For systems with more than one component,
you can write more than one material balance
equation.
 EXAMPLE OF MULTICOMPONENT SYSTEM
• Normally for multicomponent systems, you can
write a separate material balance equation for
each component present in the system
• plus one additional material balance equation
based on the total mass of the system
• PROBLEM : Suppose the input to a vessel
contains more than one component, such as 100
kg/min of a 50% water and 50%sugar (sucrose,
C12H22O11, MW 342.3) mixture. As seen in the
figure below, the vessel initially contains 1000 kg
of water, and the exit stream flow is 100 kg/min
of water and sugar.
• A multicomponent (two components) system

• write a total material balance for the process

at steady state.
• two components exist, you can write two
independent component material balances, one
for water and one for sucrose
• Will they be steady-state balances? No, because
sugar starts to accumulate in the system while
water is depleted after the addition of the sugar
solution.
• Suppose If the tank is well mixed, the
concentration of a component in the output
stream will be the same as the concentration of
the component inside the tank during mixing, an
assumption frequently made that is relatively
accurate if adequate mixing is used.
• Mixing of a dilute stream of NaOH with a
concentrated stream of NaOH. Values in the
figure are based on 1 hr of operation.
• Basis of 1 hr. chosen basis is the simplest one
• Overall material balance or total balance:
• Feed 1 + Feed 2 = Product
• the accumulation is equal to zero, hence
• Input – Output = 0 or Input = Output
• Then the material balances for NaOH, H2O, and
total mass are as follows:
• convert the kilograms to kilogram moles by
dividing each compound by its molecular weight
(NaOH = 40 and H2O = 18).
• Then the component and total balances in
kilogram moles are