CHEE2001 2020 Week 3 Tutorial Sheet

Air/Water Systems and Multi-unit System Analysis

1. Reading a psychrometric chart
Air at 25 ˚C and 1 atm has a relative humidity of 20%. Use the psychrometric chart
(Appendix A) to estimate:
a) absolute humidity (moisture content)
b) wet bulb temperature
c) dew point
d) humid volume

2. DOF and Mass Balance for an Air-Water system

An air-conditioner system (cooler-condenser) is used to cool and dry warm air for a room.
10,000 m3/h air enters the air-conditioner system at 35 ˚C and 40% relative humidity and
exits at 23 ˚C and 25% relative humidity.

a) Draw a flowchart for the system

b) Plot the position of the air intake (stream 1) and the outlet air (stream 2) on the
psychrometric chart.
c) Calculate the mass flowrate (kg/h) of the air intake.
d) Perform a DOF analysis for the air-conditioner
e) Calculate the flowrate of water (kg/h) exiting the system.

3. Mass balance for multi-unit system

Lucky Juices produces concentrated orange juice (42 wt% solids, balance water) by
concentrating fresh orange juice containing 12 wt% solids and the balance water in a steam
evaporator.

Customers have been complaining of a flat taste in the concentrated orange juice. The
company traced the problem to the fact that many volatile components in the fresh juice
were leaving the system in the evaporation unit.

To overcome this problem, Lucky changed their process circuit so that a fraction of the fresh
feed bypasses the evaporator and is then mixed with the juices leaving the evaporator to
achieve the desired final concentration. The juice entering the evaporator is concentrated to
58 wt% solid.

a) Draw and label a flowchart for this process.

b) Perform a DOF analysis for the overall system and the subsystems (splitter,
evaporator, and mixer)
c) Calculate the amount of product (42% concentrate) produced per 100 kg fresh juice
fed to the process.
d) Calculate the % feed that bypasses the evaporator.

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4. NaCl/ KCl Production

You are the senior process engineer on this plant and the Managing Director has heard
disturbing rumours that production of the mixed sodium chloride/potassium chloride product
is well below the target value of 900 tonnes per day. You have 20 minutes before the
Managing Director is going to phone and demand some specific answers. You have hurriedly
sent the junior engineer out onto the plant to obtain actual material flows and compositions.
He has just returned with the information which is shown in underneath the flow sheet
(appendix B) and claims that this is sufficient information to produce a unique solution and a
full mass balance.

a) Is the junior engineer correct in his claim about a unique and full solution to the
mass balance?
b) What are you going to tell the Managing Director when he phones?

Remember - you have only 20 minutes to come up with the answers!

5. Multi-unit Distillation
A liquid mixture containing 30 mol% benzene (B), 25 mol% toluene (T) and the balance
xylene (X) is fed to a distillation column. The bottoms product contains 98 mol% X and no B
and 96% of the X in the feed is recovered in this stream. The overhead product is fed to a
second distillation column. The overhead product from the second column contains 97% of
the B in the feed to this column. The composition of this stream is 94 mol% B and the
balance T.
a) Draw and label a flowchart for this process.
b) Perform a DOF analysis for the overall system and the two subsystems.
c) Calculate:
• the % benzene in the process feed that emerges in the overhead product from
the second column, &
• the % toluene in the process feed that emerges in the bottom product of the
second column.

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Appendix A: Psychrometric Chart air-water

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 CHEE2001 2020 Week 3 Tutorial Sheet

Appendix B: NaCl/ KCl process diagram