MASS TRANSFER

The diffusion coefficients

and diffusion rates of gases
depend strongly on
temperature.
Fick’s law of diffusion
•The
  rate of mass diffusion diff of a chemical species A in a stationary
medium in the direction x is proportional to the concentration gradient
dC/dx in that direction and is expressed by Fick’s law of diffusion by

where D is the diffusion coefficient (or mass diffusivity) of the species

AB

in the mixture and C is the concentration of the species in the mixture at

A

that
location.
Convection
You will recall that heat convection is the heat transfer mechanism that
involves both heat conduction (molecular diffusion) and bulk fluid
motion.
Fluid motion enhances heat transfer considerably by removing the
heated
fluid near the surface and replacing it by the cooler fluid further away.
In the limiting case of no bulk fluid motion, convection reduces to
conduction.
Likewise,
Likewise,
Mass convection (or convective mass transfer) is the mass transfer mechanism
between a surface and a moving fluid that involves both mass diffusion and
bulk fluid motion.
Fluid motion also enhances mass transfer considerably by removing the high
concentration fluid near the surface and replacing it by the lower concentration
fluid further away.
In mass convection, we define a concentration boundary layer in an analogous
manner to the thermal boundary layer and define new dimensionless numbers
that are counterparts of the Nusselt and Prandtl numbers.
The rate of heat convection for external flow was expressed
conveniently by Newton’s law of cooling as

• Likewise, the rate of mass convection can be expressed as

where hmass is the mass transfer coefficient, As is the

surface area, and C C∞ is a suitable concentration
s

difference across the concentration boundary layer

MASS DIFFUSION
The concentration of a species can be expressed in several ways
1. Mass Basis
• On a mass basis, concentration is expressed in terms of density (or
mass concentration), which is mass per unit volume.
Therefore, the density of a mixture at a location is equal to the sum of
the densities of its constituents at that location. Mass concentration can
also be expressed in dimensionless form in terms of mass fraction w as
 2. Mole Basis
On a mole basis, concentration is expressed in terms of molar
concentration (or molar density), which is the amount of matter in kmol
per unit volume. Again considering a small volume V at a location
within the mixture, the molar concentrations of a species (subscript i)
and of the mixture (no subscript) at that location are given by

 Molar concentration can also be expressed in

dimensionless form in terms of mole fraction y as
The mass m and mole number N of a substance are related to each other
by m=NM (or, for a unit volume, ρ= CM) where M is the molar mass
(also called the molecular weight) of the substance.
This is expected since the mass of 1 kmol of the substance is M kg, and
thus the mass of N kmol is NM kg. Therefore, the mass and molar
concentrations are related to each other by
Fick’s Law of Diffusion:
Stationary Medium Consisting of
Two Species
Fick’s law of diffusion and can be
expressed as
Mass flux =Constant of
proportionality x Concentration
gradient
It turns out that it is best to express the concentration gradient in terms
of the mass or mole fraction, and the most appropriate formulation of
Fick’s law for the diffusion of a species A in a stationary binary mixture of
species A and B in a specified direction x is given by
Here jdiff, A is the (diffusive) mass flux of species A (mass transfer by
diffusion per unit time and per unit area normal to the direction of mass
transfer, in kg/s · m2) and ¯jdiff, A is the (diffusive) molar flux (in kmol/s ·
m2).

In the special case of constant mixture density ρ or constant molar

concentration C, the relations above simplify to
For binary diffusion coefficient for several binary gas mixtures and solid
and liquid ,We make these two observations from these tables:
1. The diffusion coefficients, in general, are highest in gases and lowest in
solids. The diffusion coefficients of gases are several orders of magnitude
greater than those of liquids.
2. Diffusion coefficients increase with temperature.
 STEADY MASS DIFFUSION
THROUGH A WALL
Consider a solid plane wall (medium
B) of area A, thickness L, and density
ρ. The wall is subjected on both sides
to different concentrations of a
species A to which it is permeable.
The boundary surfaces at x=0 and x =
L are located within the solid adjacent
to the interfaces, and the mass
fractions of A at those surfaces are
maintained at wA,1 and wA,2,
respectively, at all times
If the density ρ and the mass diffusion coefficient DAB vary little along
the wall, they can be assumed to be constant. Then mass flus can be
represented as
One-dimensional mass
diffusion through a
cylindrical or spherical shell
TRANSIENT MASS DIFFUSION
Sometimes we are interested in the diffusion of a species into a body during a
limited time before steady operating conditions are established. Such problems are
studied using transient analysis.
The analogous one-dimensional transient mass diffusion problems satisfy these
requirements:
1. The diffusion coefficient is constant. This is valid for an isothermal medium
since DAB varies with temperature (corresponds to constant thermal diffusivity).
2. There are no homogeneous reactions in the medium that generate or deplete the
diffusing species A (corresponds to no heat generation).
3. Initially (t = 0) the concentration of species A is constant throughout the
medium (corresponds to uniform initial temperature).
The solution can be expressed in an analogous manner

where C is the initial concentration of species A at time t 0 and C is

A, i A, s

the concentration at the inner side of the exposed surface of the

medium. By using the definitions of molar fraction, mass fraction, and
density, it can be shown that for dilute solutions,
 Equimolar Counterdiffusion
Consider two large reservoirs
connected by a channel of
length L, as shown in Figure.
The entire system contains a
binary mixture of gases A and
B at a uniform temperature T
and pressure P throughout.
Assuming the gases to behave as ideal gases and thus P= CRuT, the total
molar concentration of the mixture C will remain constant throughout the
mixture since P and T are constant. That is,

This requires that for each molecule of A that moves to the

right, a molecule of B moves to the left, and thus the molar
flow rates of species A and B must be equal in magnitude
and opposite in sign. That is,
This process is called equimolar counter-diffusion for obvious reasons. The
net molar flow rate of the mixture for such a process, and thus the molar
average velocity, is zero since

• Therefore, the mixture is stationary on a molar basis and thus mass

transfer is by diffusion only (there is no mass transfer by convection) so
that
 • These relations imply that the mole fraction, molar concentration, and
the partial
• pressure of either gas vary linearly during equimolar counterdiffusion.

These relations imply that the mole fraction, molar

concentration, and the partial pressure of either gas vary
linearly during equimolar counter-diffusion.
It is interesting to note that the mixture is stationary on a molar basis, but it
is not stationary on a mass basis unless the molar masses of A and B are
equal. Although the net molar flow rate through the channel is zero, the
net mass flow rate of the mixture through the channel is not zero and can
be determined from
MASS CONVECTION
Mass convection (or convective
mass transfer), which is the
transfer of mass between a
surface and a moving fluid due to
both mass diffusion and bulk fluid
motion.
Dimensionless number
Schmidt number, defined as

Relative growth of the velocity and concentration boundary layers is

governed by the Schmidt number.
A Schmidt number of near unity (Sc ≈1) indicates that momentum and
mass transfer by diffusion are comparable, and velocity and
concentration boundary layers almost coincide with each other.
Lewis number
Lewis number, defined

The relative thicknesses of velocity, thermal, and concentration

boundary layers in laminar flow are expressed as

where n=1/3 for most applications in all three relations.

Sherwood number

Stanton number
Some common relation
SIMULTANEOUS HEAT AND MASS
TRANSFER