Determining Liquid Flow Rate of SO2 Solution

Question

Clean water is used to remove SO2 from air through a counter current scrubbing process to reach a 95% recovery, in which the flow rate of gas is 5000 std m3/h containing 10%(v/v) SO2. The equilibrium for the solute between gas and liquid is Y* = 26.7 X.

(1) Please determine the required liquid flow rate, assuming 1.5 fold of the theoretical minimum, (kmol/h).

(2) Please determine the number of theoretical plate.

(3) Using the number of plate determined from (2), if the recovery is to be increased from 95% to 98%, what will be the new water consumption (kmol/h)?

Summary

This question belongs to thermal engineering and discusses about mass transfer and absorptions.

Word count: 176