Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

6-1960

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Chemical Engineering

Major Professor

H. F. Johnson

Committee Members

R. M. Boarts, Hilton A. Smith, J. A. Cooley, P. F. Pasqua

Abstract

Summary: By the use of photographic techniques, the absorption rates of single CO2 bubbles suspended in downward flowing aqueous monoethanolamine (MEA) solutions were determined for various MEA and CO2 liquid concentrations. It was found that a linear correlation of the experimental data could be obtained by plotting the mass of the bubble to the one-third power versus absorption time. Such a correlation indicates that the absorption rate per unit area is constant. The absorption rates were found to increase with MEA concentration and to decrease with total absorbed CO2 concentration (that physically absorbed and chemically combined). However, because of excessive scatter in the experimental data, no satisfactory correlation of the absorption rates with liquid concentrations could be found.

Theoretical analyses of various absorption models were made. Analogue and digital computers where used when the differential equations could not be solved analytically. For two normal MEA it was found that the best explanation of the experimental rate 4x10-6 gm-mole/cm2-sec, was given by the model of steady-state diffusion with simultaneous irreversible second order chemical reaction in a stagnant film of thickness 5x10-3cm. The differential equations involved with this proposed model can best be solved by analogue computer.

In the course of the investigation several absorption models were solved analytically. Although the results indicate that the models did not apply, details of the analyses are given in Appendix A for academic interest. Appendices B and C contain the details of the theoretical analyses by digital and analogue computers.

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