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KCE LIBRARY

Transport Process
Chemical Engineering
Phase Ⅱ Edition

PREFACE

This volume is supposed to serve as a progressive book advanced for the second-phase study of “Transport Process Chemical Engineering” in the graduate course of Chemical Engineering. The previous course in the undergraduate course began with derivation of the fundamental laws in PART I to be followed by understanding the rate-based concept of transport processes. In the successive stage, we learned the models of interphase transport of momentum, heat, and mass applicable to a variety of chemical equipment. In the latter half stage, we considered how to combine these models with the practical design of popular unit operations. As the fundamental consideration of mass transfer problems, we studied gas absorption in Chapter 10 of PART I and distillation in Chapters 11 and 12 of PART Ⅱ. We treated such complicated processes macroscopically in the form of interphase mass transport, but those simple models did not take into consideration fully the effect of gas or vapor bubbles dispersed in the continuous liquid or vapor phase. In addition, some transport processes accompanied with phase transformation or chemical reaction were treated in the successive chapters. In the remaining portion, some topics of fluid mechanics (e.g. turbulent flow) in transport phenomena were treated to grasp more precisely the role of fluid motion in transport processes.

Several advanced, comprehensive themes are incorporated for enlarging the boundaries of chemical engineering knowledge in this volume. We will therefore begin the Chapter 21 of PART III with reconsidering the interphase mass transport in the dispersed system. In the following chapter, we will take an interest especially in liquid-liquid extraction as an appropriate example of dispersed system process. In Chapter 23, we will be concerned a little with the effect of dramatically-changing thermophysical properties of supercritical fluid on the transport process as a new technology. The primary objective of this volume is to inspire students with courage studying positively some transport processes in relation to the practical issues of energy and resource conservation. The chemical process industries consume a lot of energy for executing various practical chemical processes. Chapter 24 of PART IV will offer some effective energy-saving technologies for global issues of energy conservation from a thermodynamic viewpoint. In particular, the heat pump technology is worthy to be studied. As its example, we will try to understand the heat pump technology for a distillation plant. There an example of innovative development due to HIDiC technology for practical energy saving problems will be reviewed. This volume will pay a little bit bigger attention to the study of concrete concepts of practical chemical equipment design. In Chapter 25, as an example, it will be instructive to reconsider the concept of the practical design of a real packed distillation column from a viewpoint of simultaneous interphase transfer of enthalpy and mass. This design concept is based upon the control volume consideration which bridges the gap between the ideal and real chemical equipment design models. In the next chapter (Chapter 26), we had better consider some topics in thermal engineering from a thermodynamic viewpoint. When the transport process engineering deals with very complicated processes, we are very often saved by the concept of thermodynamics based on a quasi-static change from an ideal state to another ideal state. The practical design of steam ejectors will be treated based on the thermodynamical concept because the transport phenomena occurring in an ejector are too complicate to analyze precisely.

In Chapter 27, we will study several examples of visualization techniques as to how to observe various dynamic transport phenomena. It can be considered to be very interesting to observe time-dependent and/or local flow structures accompanied with heat and mass transfer. The observation experience of this kind will be a help to our analytical understanding of the chemical engineering fundamentals. In the final chapter, we would like to end this course considering some nonlinear dynamics in relation with the instability and complex dynamic processes accompanied with liquid-phase chemical reactions.

This course makes it an educational rule to encourage readers and/or students to make efforts for how to make creative problems rather than for how to solve questions. We would like to emphasize that it is much more important to make creative problems than to solve given problems.

We would not deny that AI (Artificial Intelligence) programs can answer a variety of questions intelligently, present an appropriate advice, and make deductions about real-world facts. When the AI machine receives a new observation, that observation is classified based on his previous experiences for integrating a wide range of problem-solving techniques. The AI does not work unless any problems are given. There is an undesirable possibility that the AI may give us an inappropriate answer from the insufficiently accumulated databases. We emphasize that it is of great importance how to accumulate various useful actual data and facts observed into the data bases of the AI not only for machine learning but also for data mining. Machine learning has intimate relations with optimization, e.g. minimization of some loss function or maximization of efficiency in transport processes. Data mining may give knowledge discovery in data bases, e.g. discovery of unknown properties in the transport process data. Human intelligence stands on mind, consciousness and aspiration. It is human beings that create many challenging problems throughout industry and academia. From that consciousness, we are also studying how to make creative problems in this kind of chemical engineering courses.

It is hoped that this volume will provide a valuable aid to those who are interested in more challenging creative problems.

If a reader wants to understand the fundamental ideas and/or concept of the preceding volume for the respective topics of this volume, he can access the following URL web site for the previous volume:

Kansai Chemical Engineering:
(https://www.kce.co.jp/en/library/ )
Kobe University:
(https://doi.org/10.24546/90008260 )

  • KUNIO KATAOKA
  • *Emeritus Professor
  • Dept. of Chemical Science and
  • Engineering,
  • Kobe University
  • *Honorary Advisor
  • Kansai Chemical Engineering Co., Ltd.

Kobe
November 2023

This book is placed as the PDF file in the following web site:

KCE LIBRARY

Transport Process Chemical Engineering