ChE 131

Review Problems for 3

rd
Long Exam

1. (Welty Problems 26.8)
Consider the low-pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) diffusion reactor as shown below. It is
desired to lay a thin film of the semiconductor gallium, Ga, onto a silicon wafer surface. Gallium metal is
not volatile, but trimethyl gallium (TMG; Ga(CH
3
)
3
, 114.72 g/g mol) is volatile. In the presence of an H
2

gas, at high temperature, TMG will decompose to solid Ga on a surface by the following reaction:

Ga(CH
3
)
3(g)
+ 3/2 H
2(g)
Ga
(s)
+ 3CH
4(g)

At 700C, this surface reaction is diffusion limited. Let gas phase species A = TMG; B = H
2
and C = CH
4
.
a. Develop an integral model to predict the flux of TMG to the wafer surface. Keep your final
model in algebraic form. Provide appropriate assumptions and boundary conditions. At this
point, you may not assume that the process is dilute.

For parts (b) and (c), consider a process where the feed gas consists of 99.98 mol% H2 and 0.02
mol% TMG. The temperature and total system pressure are 700C and 0.20 atm, respectively. The
binary diffusion coefficient of TMG in H2 at 750
0
C and 1.0 atm is known to be 2.0 cm
2
/s.

b. What is the value of an appropriate diffusion coefficient for this process?
c. What is the flux at z = ? If = 10 cm.

2. (Welty Problems 26.15)

Two very large tanks, maintained at 323 K and 1 atm total system pressure, are connected by a 0.1-m-
diameter circular duct which is 5 m in length. Tank 1 contains a uniform gas of 60 mol% acetone and 40
mol% air, whereas tank 2 contains a uniform gas of 10 mol% acetone and 90 mol% air. Determine the
initial rate of acetone transfer between the two tanks. The gas diffusivity of acetone in air at 298 K and 1
atm is 0.093 cm
2
/s.

3. (BSL Problems 19B.6)

Diffusion and chemical reaction in a liquid. A solid sphere of substance A is suspended in a liquid B in
which it is slightly soluble, and with which A undergoes a first-order chemical reaction with rate constant
k. At steady-state the diffusion is exactly balanced by the chemical reaction. Show that the
concentration profile is

in which R is the radius of the sphere, C
Ao
is the molar solubility of A in B, and b
2
= kR
2
/D
AB
.

4. (Welty Problems 28.24)

Several thin sheets of naphthalene, 0.25 cm thick and 10 cm square, are arranged parallel to each other
with their centers at 1-cm intervals. Air at 273 K and 1.013x 10
5
Pa enters this sandwich arrangement
with a bulk velocity of 15 m/s. At 273 K, the mass diffusivity for naphthalene in air is 5.14 x 10
-6
m
2
/s, the
Schmidt number is 2.57, and the vapor pressure of naphthalene is 1.0 Pa. Determine the concentration
of naphthalene in the air as it leaves the arrangement, evaluating the mass-transfer coefficient using the
(a) Reynolds analogy;
(b) ChiltonColburn analogy.