"Chemical Engineering Calculations"

BamaCHEM has developed a solvent, Sorbitall, that effectively removes SO₂ from an air stream using an absorption column. Our design assumes 100 mol/min of an air stream contaminated with 10 mol% SO₂ is fed to the bottom of the absorption column. It is contacted with 100 mol/min of SorbitallTM fed to the top of the absorption column. Some of the solvent evaporates into the gas so that the product gas contains 2.0 mol% Sorbitall. The liquid leaving the bottom of the column contains 5 mol% SO₂.

Your consulting company has been selected to analyze our process. Follow the systematic material balance procedure outlined in Felder and Rousseau (Wiley, 3rd or 4th edition and also brilliantly summarized in Professor Lane's "Magical Material Balance Procedure"): prepare a fully labeled process flow diagram, conduct a degree of freedom analysis, write down the material balance and other equations involving the unknown flowrates and compositions, and present your results. Any insight about our process or suggestions for operations will be most welcome.

In addition, prepare a visually intuitive spreadsheet simulation of the process using Excel to conduct these calculations with the Solver tool. Determine the SO₂ concentration in the exiting gas as a function of solvent flow rate from 25 to 175 mol/min and prepare a graph for our staff to use in operating this process. At this time we do not need a soft copy of your simulation but require a hard copy with the solution to the 100 mol/min of Sorbitall case.

You should attach all documentation to a cover letter that briefly summarizes your results. Professor Lane has graciously provided an example report on a distillation process in the team homework section of Blackboard. The engineers at BamaCHEM count on your consulting company to provide a most professional report so that we can assign the highest score possible.