Combustion Concepts

Art Morris | Thermart Software | 858-451-5791 | thermart@att.net

Making a Material Balance

A
m
material balance evaluates the stream composition Table 1. Initial ledger from the aluminum-ingot heating-process
and
a flow into and out of a system. Making one is material balance
not
n easy because of the presence of several chemical P (atm) 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
species,
s chemical reactions and the need to convert T (C) 25 25 1800 800 25 25 550
measured flow values into moles to simplify the balance arithmetic. Vol. Vol. Vol. Vol. Vol. Mass Mass
Str-unit
Here we show the use of Excel in preparing a material balance (m3) (m3) (m3) (m3) (m3) (kg) (kg)
for a simple example steady-state heating of aluminum ingots in a Spec-
Vol. % Vol. % Vol. % Vol. % Vol. %
Mass Mass
natural-gas-fired furnace. The specific objective is to calculate the unit (kg) (kg)

unknown stream compositions and flows and convert the results Burnr Cmbst Stack
Str-name Nat gas Leak air Cold al Hot al
air gas gas
to a form suitable for making a heat balance. The details are in the
Streams 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
downloadable Excel workbook MatBalCalc.
xls. Well also use three workbooks from Flow 32 361 ? ? ? 800 800
earlier columns: VolCalc.xls, StoichCalc. Al (c) 800 800
xls and HeatCalc.xls. CH4 (g) 95.00%
Figure 1 shows the example flowsheet. C2H4 (g) 3.00%
The ingots move counter-currently to the CO2 (g) ? ?
flow of gas. The heating furnace is really H2O ? ?
a heat exchanger, where hot combustion
N2 (g) 2.00% 79.00% ? ?
gas transfers heat to the charge. The fuel
O2 (g) 21.00% ? 3.30% 21.00%
is 95% CH4, 3% C2H6 and 2% N2, which is
burned with dry air (21% O2). The pressure is 1 atm, and the listed 2O2 + CH4 CO2 + 2H2O [1]
instream flows are actual (not STP). An unknown amount of air
3O2 + C2H6 2CO2 + 3H2O [2]
leaks into the charging door (stream 5). The stack gas is analyzed
on-line for percent O2. Next, create a ledger that lists all of the known stream flows and
compositions. Enter a ? where the stream flow or composition
The Material Balance is unknown. Table 1 shows such a ledger, with one additional
Material entering a process is consumed, used productively, and value calculated from workbook StoichCalc.xls. It shows that the
is either lost or leaves the system as waste. A material balance volume ratio of air/NG is 11.27 at 18% excess air, so the airflow is
can pinpoint changes that have the greatest potential to decrease 11.27 32 = 360.6 m3.
waste production and, if done properly, allow a what-if calculation Material-balance calculations are easier using molar flows, so
to show the effects of a process change on other process variables. next we use workbook VolCalc.xls to calculate the natural gas
Making one involves several steps. (NG) flow as 1,308 g-mole/min, and airflow is 14,739 g-mole/
First, write the chemical reactions that occur. Both reactions min (2.884 lb-mole NG/min and 32.50 lb-mole air/min). For one
proceed to completion with excess air and show that 3 moles of g-mole of natural gas burned, workbook HeatCalc.xls shows that
product are formed for every mole of CH4 burned (but no change the CO2 and H2O production is 1.01 and 1.99 g-mole respectively,
in volume) and 5 moles for every mole of C2H6 (with mole and it requires 2.005 g-mole O2 for stoichiometric combustion.
increase in volume). These are multiplied by 1,308 to obtain values commensurate
with the actual instream flows. The leak airflow is calculated from
Heat loss 4 Stack gas the increase in stack gas flow required to bring its composition to
Hot combustion gas Heat loss (3.3% O2, 3.3% O2. Table 2 (online only) summarizes the calculated flow
Natural gas 1 (1800C) 800C)
(32 m3/ for each substance. We see that about 2% of the air entering the
min, 25C) 3 Leak air
Burners (25C) furnace comes from the air leak.
Burner air 2 Ingot heating furnace 5
(118%
Worksheet MatBalCalc.xls has a step-by-step explanation for
stoich, 25C) each stream calculation, and it has a material-balance ledger in
7 6
Heated
Aluminum
composition units. The results are presented in the correct form
aluminum ingots (800 kg/min, 25C) for making a heat balance, which well cover next month. IH
(800 kg/min, 550C)
Tables and workbook at www.industrialheating.com/MatBalCalc
Fig. 1. Flowsheet for a steady-state aluminum-ingot heating process
References available online

20 November 2012 - IndustrialHeating.com