POPULATION BALANCE
MODELLING
ENGR. DANISH IQBAL
DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
FOR FURTHER READING:
IMPORTANCE OF PARTICULATE SYSTEMS
• Particles are encountered into a variety of systems.
• Naturally present
• Engineered into systems
• Analysis of a particulate system is performed to understand the behavior of the
population of particles and its environment from the behavior of single particles in
their local environments
• Population Balance Modelling (or PB Modelling) is the study of how particles interact
with their environment.
• Population is described usually by ‘number’ or ‘mass’ of particles.
IMPORTANCE OF PARTICULATE SYSTEMS
• What is the difference between the two EM images ?
Both are carbon
particles, but
with different
size, diameter,
surface area.
WHAT IS POPULATION BALANCE
MODELLING ?
• Population balances are used in a variety of areas, including but not limited to,
• Astrophysics,
• Geophysics
• Biophysics
• Chemical Engineering
• Civil Engineering
• Mechanical Engineering
IMPORTANT TERMINOLOGIES
• Particle State Space
• Particles have internal and external coordinates
(internal coordinates: properties, external
coordinates: location)
• Particle state space: Internal + external coordinates
• Internal and/or external coordinates can be discrete or
continuous
• Example of continuous variable: The temperature of a
particle in a fluidized bed
• Example of discrete variable: a population consisting
of particles of different materials with a variable taking
on discrete values each representing a particular
material.
• Number Density:
• No. of particles per unit volume
IMPORTANT TERMINOLOGIES
• Convective Processes:
• Number of particles in a system may vary with time, due to convective
motion.
• When particle states are continuous, these processes have smooth
variation with time, and may be called as ‘convective’ processes.
• Birth or Death Processes:
• The particles may also form in (‘Birth’) or disappear from (‘Death’) a
system.
• Example of Birth and Death processes may be breakage, splitting,
aggregation etc.
BIRTH AND DEATH PROCESSES
POPULATION BALANCE IN CHEMICAL
ENGINEERING
• Notable applications of Population
• The choice of the particle state variables to Balance in Chemical Engineering
be modelled depends on the application. are,
• For example, chemical engineers concerned • Solid liquid dispersions
with the modeling of crystallizers will be • Gas solid dispersion
interested in predicting and controlling the • Gas liquid dispersions
size distribution of crystals in the product. • Bioreactors
• The particles in this application are of • Fluidized bed reactors
course crystals, and the size of the crystal • Nanotechnology
is the main particle state. • Ceramic mixture manufacture
EXAMPLE: AGE DISTRIBUTION
• elements of fluid taking different routes through the reactor may take different lengths of time to pass
through the vessel.
• The distribution of these times for the stream of fluid leaving the vessel is called the exit age distribution E,
or the residence time distribution RTD of fluid.
• E has the units of time-l
• Fraction younger than age t1 is
• Fraction older than age t1 is
EXAMPLE: AGE DISTRIBUTION
• The simplest and most direct way of finding the E curve uses a physical or nonreactive
tracer. This can be done in 4 ways,
• Let us find the E curve for a vessel of volume V m3 through
which flows v m3/s of fluid. For this instantaneously
introduce M units of tracer (kg or moles) into the fluid
entering the vessel and record the concentration-time of
tracer leaving the vessel. This is the C pulse curve
