Material Balance Without

Chemical Reaction
By:
Mr. Kuldeep Bhatt
Chemical Engineering Department
Parul Institute of Technology
Parul University

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 Introduction
• It is also called “Mass Balance”
• Material balance (MB) calculation is an
essential part of chemical engineering
problems
• Material balance of an industrial process is an
exact accounting (calculation/determination)
of all the materials which enter, leave,
accumulate or depleted in the course of given
time interval

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 Conservation Law
• Material balance works on the conservation of
mass law , which states that:

– “Mass is neither created nor destroyed”

– “Mass of the universe is constant”
– “The mass of any isolated system is constant”
– Etc…

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 Importance of MB
• In process industries, material balance assist
– in the planning for process design
– In the economic evaluation of proposed and existing
process
– In process control
– In process optimization
• For example in the extraction of oil from oil
seeds, we can calculate the amount of solvent
required for extraction
• Another example is amount of solvent required
to evaporate to concentrate the solution

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 Importance of MB (Cont.)
• MB also used in hourly and daily operation
decisions of plant manager
• If there are one or more points where in a
process where it is impossible to collect data then
if sufficient other data are available, by making a
material balance on the process it is possible to
get the missing information
• In most plants a mass data is accumulated on the
quantities and compositions of raw material,
intermediates, wastes, products and by products
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 Material Balance
• A material balance is nothing more than an
accounting for mass flows and changes in
inventory of mass for system
• Principle of material balance applicable to
with or without chemical reaction is:

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 Material Balance (Cont.)
• Generation and consumption terms refers to
the loss and gain by chemical reaction
• The accumulation may be negative or positive
• For the no generation and consumption
means without chemical reaction equation
becomes:

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 Material Balance (Cont.)
• When there is no accumulation inside the system
at that time equation becomes:
• At steady state condition:

• We can say that, “what goes in must come out”

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 Material Balance (Cont.)
• System
– By system we mean any arbitrary portion or whole of a
process as set out specifically by engineer for analysis
System

Product
Reactant IN
OUT
Reactor
System
Boundary

• Note that system boundary is formally circumscribed

about the process itself to call attention to the
importance of carefully delineating the system in each
problem you work

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• Example of Process:

INPUT Separation Output

Reactor Dryer
Unit

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 Total and Component Balance
• Total material balance refers to the balance
written for the total mass involved in the
process
• Component balance establishes the
quantitative relationship between individual
chemical compound or species

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 Keep in Mind
• Material balance is balance on mass
• Always use mass basis or mole basis
• For streams which are mixtures of gases and
whose analysis are given in volume %, in that
case choose 100 mol or kmol as basis (as
volume % = mole %)
• For solid & liquid streams 100kg or 1 mol of a
pure component can be chosen as a basis
• If answer required in time rate then take basis
as kg/h, kmol/h, kg/s, kmol/s, etc…

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• Example: Hydrogenation of a coal to give hydrocarbon
gases is one method of obtaining gaseous fuels with
sufficient energy content for future. Figure shows how the
fluid bed reactor can be set up to give product gas of high
methane content.

If 1200 kg/h (assume that the coal is 80% C, 10% H, 10%

inert material) is dropped through the top of reactor,

(a) How many kilograms of coal leave the reactor per hour?
(b) If 15000 kg/h of air is blown into the reactor, how many
kilograms of air per hour leave the reactor?
(c) If reactor operates at temp shown in fig and with addition
of 2000 kg of steam per hour, how many kg/h of
combustion and product gas leave the reactor per hour.

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 Analysis of Material Balance Problems
• We are going to discuss method of analysis of
material balance problems that will enable
you to understand,

– How similar these problems are

– How to solve them in most expeditious manner

• For some problems it is easy and some it is

difficult

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• If you want to solve material balance for a
system, you must have information dealing
with two fundamental concepts,

– The mass (weights) in all streams of material

entering and leaving the system and present in the
system
– The composition of all the streams entering and
leaving the system and the composition of the
material in the system

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• Let us look our problem in general by means of
“black box” technique
• i.e. we draw a black box for the process and
consider what going into the process and what
comes out from the process
• This procedure defines the system i.e. the process
or body of matter set out to be analyzed
• We’ll assume that, process is steady state i.e.
there is no accumulation in the system
• Even if there is a batch process we assume above
and do our calculations
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 Example 1
• Consider a box with 3 streams entering and leaving a
system,
Composition
? EtOH
? H2O W = ? kg
? MeOH

F= 100 kg P = 60 kg
System
Composition Composition
50% EtOH 80% EtOH
40% H2O 5% H2O
10% MeOH 15% MeOH

• Where, F = Feed Rate; P = Product Rate; W = third stream of change

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• First step is compute total mass balance,
Input in the system = Output
F= P + W
100 = 60 + W
W = 40 kg
• Mass balance equations for each components,
Balance in = Balance out
xF*F = xP*P + xW*W
For EtOH: 0.50*100 = 0.6*60 + xEtOH*40
For H2O: 0.40*100 = 0.05*60 + xH2O*40
For MeOH: 0.10*100 = 0.15*60 + xMeOH*40
xEtOH + xH2O +xMeOH = 1
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 Example 2

Composition
78% H2O
22% MeOH W = ? kg

F= 100 kg P = ? kg
System
Composition
Composition
50% EtOH
91% EtOH
40% H2O
9% H2O
10% MeOH

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• As a general rule, before making any calculations,

– Draw a picture of process

– Place all available data in the picture
– See what compositions are known or can be determined
calculated for each streams
– See what masses are known or can easily be found for each
stream
– Select a suitable basis for calculations. Every addition or
subtraction must be made with the material on the same basis
– Make sure the system is well defined

• After doing this you are able to do material balance. Now

you can perform,

– Total material balance

– A component material balance for each component present

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 Example 3
• 1000 kg/h of a mixture of benzene and
toluene containing 50% benzene by mass is
separated by distillation into two fractions.
The mass flow rate of benzene in the top is
450 kg/h and that of toluene is 475 kg/h at
bottom. The operation is steady state. Write
balance on benzene and toluene to calculate
unknown component flow rates in output
stream.
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Basis: 1000kg/h of feed mixture
500 kg/h Benzene
500 kg/h Toluene

W = 450 kg/h of Benzene

W = ? kg/h of toluene

F= 1000 kg P = 475 kg/h of toluene

Distillation
Composition
P = ? kg/h of Benzene
50% Benzene
50% Toluene
Overall balance over system, for Benzene,
FB = WB+ PB→ 500 = 450 + PB → PB = 50 kg/h

Overall balance over system, for Toluene,

`FT = WT+ PT→ 500 = 475 + PT → PT = 25 kg/h

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 Example 4: Balances on Batch Mixing
Process
• Two methanol-water mixtures are contained in a separate
flask. The first mixture contains 40 wt% methanol, and
second contains 70 wt% Methanol. If 200 gm of first
mixture is combined with 150 g of second, what are the
mass and composition of the product?

• Answer:
Mass = 350 g
Composition = MeOH- 0.529
H2O = 0.417

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 Example 5:
• Wood containing 40% moisture is dried to 5%
moisture. What mass of water in kilograms is
evaporated per kg of dry wood?

• Answer: 0.583 kg of water evaporated per kg

of dry wood

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 Independent MB equations and
Degree of Freedom
• Total material balance and component balance
provide set of equations which can be solved to
determine unknown quantities
• To get solution, no. of equations must be equal to
no. of unknowns
• If no. of unknowns exceeds no. of equations,
solution is not feasible
• If no. of equations exceeds no. of unknown, use
can use any set of equation to get value of
unknown
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 Example 6:
• The wet acid from nitrating process contains
23% HNO3,57% H2SO4, and 20 H2O by weight.
This acid is to be concentrated to contain 27%
HNO3, and 60% H2SO4 by addition of
concentrated sulfuric acid containing 93%
H2SO4 and concentrated nitric acid containing
90% HNO3. Calculate the weights of waste and
concentrated acid which must be obtained
1000kg of desired mixture.
• Answer: waste acid = 70.22 kg; conc. H2SO4
=398.88 kg; conc. HNO3 = 530.90 kg
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Unit Operations and MB -- Evaporation
• Evaporation is used in the industry for concentrating aqueous
solutions by vaporizing the solvent water and removing it as a vapor

• Application of evaporation is
– Concentration of sugar cane juice in sugar factory
– Concentration of ammonium sulphate in fertilizer industry
– Concentration of spent lye to produce glycerin in soap industry
– Concentration of caustic in the textile industry

• Depending on the mode of heating evaporators are divided in

different category

• Mainly heated by direct fire, evaporators with heating media in

jackets and steam heated tubular evaporators are common

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 Evaporator Unit- Single effect
evaporator

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 MB for single effect
• Overall balance on single effect, Vapor
Out, V
Steam
F=V+L IN

• Component (Solute) balance,

F*Xf = V*Xf + L*Xf
• Solute will be zero in vapor, Condensate
OUT
F*Xf = L*Xf
Feed Liquid
IN, F Product
OUT, L

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 MB for triple effect

V3
V1 V2

Ist IInd IIIrd

Effect Effect Effect

L1 L2
Feed, F P
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• Overall balance,
– for whole system,
F = V + P; (V1+V2+V3=V)
– for Ist effect,
F = V1 + L1
– For IInd effect,
L1 = V2 + L2
– For IIIrd effect
L2 = V3 + P

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• Component/Solute balance,

– for Ist effect,

F*Xf = L1*XL1

– For IInd effect,

L1*XL1 = L2*XL2

– For IIIrd effect

L2*XL2 =P*Xp

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 Example 7
• A triple effect evaporator is used to
concentrate 1000 kg of aqueous solution from
concentration of 20% solute to 80% solute.
Assuming an equal amount of vaporization in
each effect, calculate composition and weight
of the solution entering the second and third
effects.
• Ans.: L1= 750 kg; x1= 0.2667;
L2 = 500 kg; x2 = 0.4

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 Example 8
• In process of producing caustic , 4000 kg/h of
solution containing 10 wt% NaOH is evaporated
in first evaporator, giving 20% NaOH solution.
This is then fed into the second evaporator, which
gives a product of 50% NaOH. Calculate the
following:
(a) The amount of water evaporated from each
effect
(b) The feed to 2nd evaporator
(c) The amt of product
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 Example 9
• An aqueous solution containing 15% NaOH and
0.5% NaCl is concentrated at a rate of 100 kg/min
in a evaporator. The concentrated solution is then
mixed with a 2000 kg of aqueous solution of
NaOH solution in a mixer. At the end of I hour
sample is collected from mixer and analyzed. The
analysis show that 40% NaOH and 0.8574% NaCl.
Calculate the following:
(a) Composition of concentrate from evaporator
(b) The mass of water evaporated in one hour
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 Example 10
• A four effect evaporator is fed continuously with
25000 kg/h of a solution containing 10% NaOH,
10% NaCl, and rest water by weight. During
evaporation, water is removed as vapor. At the
outlet we require 30% NaCl, 40%NaOH. Assume
same rate of evaporation for all the effects.
Determine,
(a) Rate of evaporation of each effect
(b) Composition of inlet of each effect
(c) Feed rate of each effect
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 Example 11
• A 50% NaCl solution is to be concentrated at a
rate of 50000 kg/h in a triple effect
evaporator. Rate of condensate is 35000 kg/h.
Equal amount of water is evaporated from
each effect. Determine the composition and
flow of outlet stream from each effect.

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 Unit Operations and MB --
Crystallization
• Crystallization is the process in which solid particles are
formed from liquid solution by evaporating and/or
cooling of a saturated solution
• It is a important method of purification
• Crystallization occurs when the solution is
concentrated and usually cooled until the solute
concentration becomes greater than its solubility at
that temperature
• Solubility is defined as amount(mass) of solute(salt)
dissolved in 100 gm/ml of water (solvent) at particular
temperature

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• Remember that, industrial crystallization process,
equilibrium is attained between the
solution(mother liquor) and the crystals, and
hence the mother liquor leaving the process is
saturated solution at final temperature of
crystallization
• The yield of crystals can be calculated knowing
the initial concentration of solute, final
temperature and the solubility at that
temperature
• Simple solute and water balances are sufficient
• When crystals are hydrated, some of the water in
the solution is removed with crystals as a
hydrated

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 W3 kg Water
evaporated

W2 kg Mother
F kg of Solution Liquor
Crystallizer
xF Solute fraction X2 fraction of
solute

W1 kg hydrated X1 fraction of
crystals solute

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• Total Balance:
F = W1 + W2 + W3

• Solute Balance:
F*XF = W1*X1+W2*X2

• Solvent Balance
F*(1-XF) = W1*(1-X1) +W2*(1- X2)+ W3

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 Example 12
A crystallizer is charged with 100 kg of a
solution containing 25% Ba(NO3)2 in water. In
cooling 10% of original water present
evaporates. Calculate the yield of crystals
when the solution is cooled to 283 K. The
solubility at 283 K is 7.0 kg Ba (NO3)2/100 kg
total water.
Ans.: Yield of crystals is 20.28 kg

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 Example 13
• A tank holds 10000 kg of saturated solution of
NaHCO2 at 60°C. you want to crystallize 500 kg
of NaHCO3 from this solution. To what
temperature must the solution be cooled?
• Solubility Data:
Temp (°C) Solubility in 100g H2O
60 16.4
50 14.45
40 12.7
30 11.1
20 9.6
10 8.15

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 Example 14
• An aqueous solution of Na2CO3 contains 15%
carbonate by weight. 80% of the carbonate is
recovered as Na2CO3.10H2O by evaporation of
water and subsequent cooling to 278 K. the
solubility of Na2CO3 at 278 K is 9.0%. On the
basis of 100 kg of solution treated, determine
the following:
1. Quantity of crystals formed
2. The amount of water evaporated

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 Unit Operations and MB -- Leaching
• Leaching is a separation of solid mixture by
selectively dissolving the soluble contents of the
solid in the liquid solvent
• Some industrial applications are:
– Recovery of minerals from naturally occurring ores,
– oils from oil seeds,
– tannin from wood barks,
– vitamins and pharmaceutical products from plant
leaves and roots,
– sugar from sugar beets

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 S kg solvent

R kg Overflow
B kg Inert C kg solute
F kg Solute A kg Solvent
Leaching Unit

B kg Inert
E kg clear solution

• Feed is B kg inert solids and F kg solute

• S is the mass of solvent added
• The overflow is R kg solution consisting of A & C
• Underflow is B kg inert solid suspended in E kg
clear solution

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• Concentration of inert material in any stream
represented as weight ratio of B on B-free
basis and is denoted by “N”
• Concentration of solute is represented as the
weight ratio of solute on B-free basis
• Let, “x” represents solute concentration in
overflow and “y” represents solute
concentration in underflow solution
x = C / (A + C)
y = B/ (A + C)

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• Inert balance,
B = NF*F = N*E
Where, NF and N are concentration in feed and
underflow on an inert free basis
• The solution (A+C) balance written as,
F+S=E+R
• The solute balance is,
F*yF + S*yS = E*y + R*x

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 Example 15
• A tannery extracts certain wood barks which
contains 40% tannin, 5% moisture, 23%
soluble non tannin materials and the rest
insoluble lignin. The residue removed from
the extraction tanks contains 50% water, 3%
tannin, and 1% soluble non tannin materials.
What percent of the original tannin remains
unextracted?
Ans: 5.2%

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 Example 16
• Oilseeds containing 49% oils, 40% pulp, 3% mineral salts
and the rest moisture are leached with hexane as a solvent.
The underflow from the leaching operation contains 25%
hexane, 2.5% salts, 15% oil and 7.5% moisture. The extract
contains 25% oil. The extract is distilled to recover the
entire hexane in pure form leaving behind oil, water and
salt. The underflow is subjected to steam distillation which
recovers 95% hexane. For treating 100 kg seeds, calculate
the following:
(a) The kg of hexane used
(b) The % of hexane used that is recovered from the
underflow
(c) % recovery of oil

Answer: (a) 128 kg; (b) 14.84%; (c) 75.51%

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 Unit Operations and MB -- Drying
• Drying is usually one of the last unit operation in
chemical process industry
• In drying a wet solids or slurry is contacted with dry gas
(usually air or flue gas) so that water is vaporized from
the solids and is carried away by the gas
• Depending upon the solids to be dried, several types of
driers are in common use:
– Tray dryer (for pasty materials and lumpy solids)
– Rotary driers (for granular and free flowing solids)
– Freeze driers (for food stuffs and pharmaceuticals)
– Spray driers (for slurries and paste)

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 GS kg dry gas
With Y1 humidity

SS kg of dry solid in wet

feed
X1 moisture content Dryer
SS kg of dry solid
X2 final moisture content

GS kg dry gas
With Y2 humidity

• Moisture balance on dryer yields,

Ss (X1-X2) = Gs (Y1-Y2)

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 Example 17
• A dryer is fed with wet solids to reduce the
moisture content from 80% to 15%. The product
leaving the dryer is admitted to an oven which
further brings down the moisture to 2%. If the
dryer can handle 1000 kg of wet solids per day,
calculate
(a) The weight of products leaving the dryer and the
oven per day
(b) The percentage of the original water that is
removed in the dryer and oven
Ans.: (a) 235.29 kg & 204.08 kg; (b) 95.6% & 3.90%
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 Example 18
• A wet paper pulp is found to contain 71%
water. After drying it is found that 60% of the
original water has been removed. Calculate
the following:
(a) The composition of dried pulp
(b) The mass of the water removed per kilogram
of wet pulp
Ans.: (a) 0.29 kg pulp & 0.284 kg water; (b)
50.5% & 49.5%
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 Example 19
• A batch of leather leaving a dryer weights
1000 kg and contains 5% moisture. During
drying the leather loses 50% of its original
weight. Determine the following:
(a) The moisture content of the leather entering
the dryer
(b) The amount of water removed
(c) Water removed as percent of the original
water present
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 Unit Operations and MB – Liquid-
Liquid Extraction
• The process of separation of a liquid mixture by
treating with an immiscible liquid solvent in
which the constituents are differently soluble is
known as liquid-liquid extraction
• The resulting solvent reach phase is called as
“extract”
• The residual solution from which solvent is
extracted is called “raffinate”
• The mutually insoluble extract and raffinate
phases are then separated from one another by
settling and gravity separation
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 Solvent, S

Feed, F Extract, E
Xf solvent Y solute
Extractor

Raffinate, R
X solute

• Overall balance,
F+S=R+E
• Solute balance,
F * Xf = R*X + E*Y

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 Example 20
• Isopropyl alcohol and water can be separated by extraction
with ethylene tetrachloride. 100 kg of a solution containing
30% isopropyl alcohol and the rest water is mixed with the
solvent ethylene tetrachloride. After extraction, the
raffinate phase analyzed 71% water, 28.1% isopropyl
alcohol and 0.9% ethylene tetrachloride. The extracted
phase analyzed 94% ethylene tetrachloride, 5.2% isopropyl
alcohol and the rest water. calculate the following:
(a) The amount of solvent
(b) The quantities of raffinate and extract phase
(c) The percent extraction of isopropyl alcohol
Answer: (a) 45.1 kg (b) 47.04 kg & 98.06 kg (C) 8.17%

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 Example 21
• A mixture containing 30% acetone and 70% chloroform
is extracted with mixed solvent containing acetic acid
and water. The two immiscible phases – the raffinate
and extract phases – that result after extraction had
the following analysis: Extract: acetone 7.0%,
chloroform 3.0%, acetic acid 30.0% and water 60.0%.
Raffinate: acetone 20.0%, chloroform 67.0%, acetic
acid 10.0% and water 3.0%. For the basis of 100 kg of
the mixture extracted, determine the following:
(a) The composition of the mixed solvent on weight basis
(b) The quantities of raffinate and extract phases
(c) The amount of mixed solvent used

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Unit Operations and MB – Absorption
• Absorption is a gas-liquid operation
• Solute from gas mixture is separated by absorbing in a
suitable liquid solvent
• The reverse process i.e. removal of solute from liquid
mixture by contacting with gas phase is known as
desorption or stripping
• example:
– Ammonia is absorbed from a ammonia-air mixture by
contacting with the water
– Benzene vapors present in the coke-oven gas can be
absorbed in the hydrocarbon oils
– Hydrogen sulphide can be absorbed in ethanol amine
solution

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• Consider the absorption of solute A from gas
mixture into a liquid solvent
• Let, G & L represents flow L 2 G 2
L Solvent
S G S
rate of the gas and liquid X2 Y2
x y
in kmol/h 2 2

• x and y (small) the mole fraction

of A (solute) in the liquid and gas,
Absorber
respectively
• Gs flow rate of non-diffusing gas
• Ls flow rate of pure solvent
L G
• For bottom we use suffix 1
1 1
L Solvent
S G S
X Y
• For top we use suffix 2 x
1
1 y1
1

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• X & Y (Capital) represents the mole ratio of solute in liquid and gas
respectively

• The overall balance over the absorber is:

G 1 + L2 = G 2 + L 1

• The solute balance is:

G1*y1 + L2*x2 = G2*y2 + L1*x1

• Solute free gas and liquid rate

Gs = G*(1-y)
Ls = L*(1-x)

• Solute free component balance:

Gs*Y1 + Ls*X2 = Gs*Y2 + Ls*X1
Gs*(Y1-Y2) = Ls*(X1-X2)

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 Example 22
• Acetone is recovered from an acetone-air
mixture containing 25% (volume) acetone by
scrubbing with water. Assuming that air is
insoluble in water, determine the percent of
acetone in the entering gas in the entering gas
that is absorbed if the gas leaving the
scrubber analyzed 5% acetone.
Answer: 84.21%

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 Example 23
• Ammonia is recovered from a gas mixture
containing 25% (volume) CO2 and 75%
ammonia by scrubbing with water. Assuming
that CO2 is insoluble in water, determine the
percent of ammonia in the entering gas that is
absorbed if the gas leaving the scrubber
analyzes 35% ammonia.

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 Unit Operations and MB – Distillation
• Distillation is used to separate liquid mixtures
into component parts by boiling
• The products obtained from distillation are
commonly referred to as distillate (or top
product), which is rich in more volatile
components and residue (bottom product),
which is rich in less volatile components

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 Condenser Distillate, D
xD

Reflux, L
Feed, F
xF
Distillation

Bottom, B
• Overall balance, xB
Reboiler
F=D+B
• Component balance,
F*xF = D*xD + B*xB
• Reflux Ratio, R = L/D, where L is flow of reflux and
D is flow of distillate

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 Example 24
• A continuous distillation column is used to
regenerate solvent use in a solvent extraction
unit. The column treats 200 kmol/h of a feed
containing 10% (mol) ethyl alcohol and the
rest is water. The overhead product is 89%
(mol) alcohol and the bottom product is 0.3%
(mol) alcohol. The overhead is sent to the
extraction unit and bottom is wasted. What is
daily requirement of make-up alcohol in the
solvent extraction unit?
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 Example 25
• An aqueous solution of methanol containing 20%
(wt) methanol is to be separated into a distillate
product containing 97% (wt) methanol and
bottom product containing 2% (wt) methanol. For
treating 100 kg of feed with a reflux ratio of 3.5
on weight basis, calculate the following:
(a) The amount of distillate and bottom product
(b) The amount of vapor condensed in the
condenser per kg of distillate
(c) The amount of vapor condensed in the
condenser per kg of feed
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 Recycle, Bypass, and Purging –
Recycle
• A system with recycle is the one in which stream
leaving the system/unit/process is partly returned to
the same system/unit/process for reusing or
reprocessing
• The recycling of stream in chemical processing
industries is a common practice to increase yield, to
increase purity, to enrich a product or to conserve
heat Recycle

Feed Product
Process
Mixer Separator

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• Examples are:
– In drying operation portion of hot air leaving dryer
is recycled back to conserve heat or to control the
humidity of air
– In chemical reactions, the unreacted material may
be separated from the product and recycled back
to increase the yield or purity of product
– In distillation column the part of distillate is
refluxed back to the column to maintain liquid
level or to increase purity of distillate

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 Recycle, R

Feed, F Process Gross Net

Feed Process Prod. Product, P
Mixer Separator
2 3 4

• Consider the process in steady state i.e. no

build up or depletion of material can take
place inside the process or in the recycle
stream
• The values of F, P and R are constant
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• Process feed is made up to two streams i.e.
fresh feed and recycle material
• Gross product can be separated in two
streams, the net product and material that is
recycled
• In some cases recycle material has same
composition as the gross product stream,
while in other instances the composition may
be entirely different depending on the how
the separation occurs

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• A balance can be written in several ways, four of which are shown
by dashed lines in figure:
(a) About the entire process including the recycle stream, as indicated
by dashed lines marked 1
(b) About the junction point at which the fresh feed is combined with
the recycle stream, as indicated by dashed line marked 2
(c) About the process only, as indicated by dashed line marked 3
(d) About the junction point at which the gross product is separated
into recycle and net product, as indicated by dashed line marked 4

• Depending upon the information available in given problem, by

doing balance as per above four ways we can find unknowns
• In balance 1, we don’t get information about recycle stream. To
find the amount and composition of recycle stream balance 2, 3
& 4 is useful
• The ratio of the quantity of a substance in the recycled stream to
the quantity of the same substance in the fresh feed is known as
the recycle ratio
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 Example 26
• A distillation column separates 10,000 kg/h of a 50%
benzene – 50% toluene mixture. The product
recovered from the condenser at the top of the column
contains 95% benzene, and the bottom of the column
contains 96% toluene. The vapor stream entering the
condenser from the top of the column is 8000 kg/h. A
portion of the product is returned to the column as a
reflux, and the rest is withdrawn for use elsewhere.
Assume the compositions of the streams at the top of
the column (V), the product withdrawn (D), and the
reflux (R) are identical. Find the ratio of the amount
refluxed to the product withdrawn.
Answer: 0.584

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 Example 27
• Data are presented in figure below for an
evaporator. What is the recycle stream in kg
per hour? HO
W
2

300° F Feed 10000 kg/h

Evaporator 20% KNO3 Solution
M
50% R
Recycle 100°F
KNO3
Saturated Solution 0.6
Crystallizer kg KNO3 per kg H2O

C Crystals carry off 4% H2O

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 Bypass
• A bypass stream is one which skips one or
more stages of the process and goes directly
to another stage
Bypass

Feed Product
Process
Separator Mixer

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 Purge
• A purge stream is a stream bled off to remove
an accumulation of inerts or unwanted
material that might otherwise build up in the
recycle stream
Divider
Purge
Recycle

Feed Product
Process
Mixer Separator

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• The purge rate is adjusted so that the amount
of purged material remains below a specified
level or so that the,

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 Example 28
• In a feed stock preparation section of a plant
manufacturing natural gasoline, isopentane is
removed from butane-free gasoline. Assume
for purpose of simplification the process and
components are as shown in figure. What
fraction of the butane –free gasoline is passed
through the isopentane tower?

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