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NPTEL PHASE -II :Transport Phenomena

Convective-diffusion equation for a binary system

The equation of continuity, Equation (35.16) may be further modified for binary systems by substituting the following
equation for mass flux .
If A and B are the two components of a binary mixture,

or

where

, is the absolute flux of component A,

flux of A. Furthermore, the difussive flux,

is the diffusive flux of component A and

is the convective

, may be calculated by using the Fick's law of diffusion as given below.

The equation of continuity for component A in the binary mixture is given by

Thus,

or

If density of the mixture

is a constant,which may be a reasonable assumption in the mass transfer for dilute liquids

solutions, the value of

is zero and we may modify the Equation (36.5) as shown below

Further, if DAB is a constant, then

or

The Equation (36.8) is called the convective diffusion equation. The corresponding equation for species B has a similar
form. This equation may be used for describing the mass transfer in a binary system with constant mixture density
and diffusivity DAB. The Equation (36.8) for all coordinate systems is given in Appendix-8. This Equation may be further
extended in terms of molar units by dividing Equation (36.8) by the molecular weight of component i,Mwi, or

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The Equation (36.9) is also valid for the same cases where density p and diffusivity DAB are constants. The detail form
of Equation (36.9) in all coordinate systems are given in Appendix - 8.
If we compare Equation (36.8) to the equations of motion and the thermal energy, we note the following
Equation of motion:

Equation of thermal energy:

Equation of continuity for binary systems:

All three equations written above are similar in form. These equations show the similarities among momentum, heat,
and mass transport and one should not be surprised to find that many times the friction factor may be used for
calculating the heat and mass transfer coefficients. It may be noted that the term (/ ) present in the Navior Strok
equation is called the momentum diffusivity and the term (k/ c p) present in the equation of thermal energy is called
the thermal diffusivity. These terms also show the analogy with mass diffusivity DAB as they all have the same units as
c.m.2/ sec.

Solution of mass transport problems

It is clear from Equations (36.8) and (36.9) that first we need to determine the velocity profile from the equation of
motion and then substitute it in these equations to determine the concentration profiles. This may be avoided for some
special cases where the following three classical assumptions are applicable.
(1)Equimolar counter diffusion
For a binary mixture of A and B, number of moles of species A moving in one direction is equal to the number of moles
of species B moving in the opposite direction, we have

also

or

Thus,

The value of

is known from Fick's law of diffusion and therefore Equation (36.15) may be used for determining

concentration profiles
(2) A diffusing through stagnant B
The species A diffuses through a stagnant species B. In this case, the flux of species B is zero, i.e.,
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Thus, the total flux of species A may be written as

or

By substituting Equation (36.17) in the equation of continuity, we get

Which again may be solved for determining the concentration profile

(3) The ratio NA/NB is constant
Here, the ratio fluxes of both species is known to be a constant, i.e.,

or

where c 1 is the number of moles of species B which are moving with every mole of the species A. Thus, total flux of
species A may be written as

or

Thus, the equation of continuity for species A may be modified as

Once again, the Fick's law of diffusion may be substituted for

to finally obtain a differential equation in terms of

concentration and there is no need to first determine the velocity profile

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