Simulation of binary vapor condensation in the presence of an inert gas

Abstract

Two recently developed simplified models of multicomponent mass transfer are employed to determine the composition profiles during the condensation of a binary vapor (methanol-water) from an inert gas (air or helium). It is found that the profiles and the predicted outlet conditions are in excellent agreement with the results obtained using an exact solution of the Maxwell-Stefan equations to predict the mass transfer rates. It is concluded that the simplified approach to multicomponent mass transfer calculations will probably be adequate for many design problems, thereby realising important savings in computational time and computer program complexity.