Modeling of Noncatalytic Gas-Solid Reactions
Modeling of Noncatalytic Gas-Solid Reactions
Modeling of Noncatalytic Gas-Solid Reactions
Reactions
This paper presents a critical review of the developments in the mathematical P. A. RAMACHANDRAN and
modeling of gas-solid noncatalytic reactions with particular emphasis on recent
trends in the subject. A number of models proposed for analyzing this class of re- L. K. DORAISWAMY
actions have been reviewed with a fairly detailed discussion of the methods of Naibnal Chmmkd Laboratary
incorporating structural changes which occur in the solid with the progress of re- PoocyIndl.
action. The present status on the modeling of various types of complex gas-solid
reactions is reviewed. Also the paper points out a number of areas in which future
research may be needed. The review concludes with a critical discussion on the
type of experimental data necessary for model verification and some comments
on the choice of model for a given system.
SCOPE
Noncatalytic gassolid reactions are encountered in a variety solid properties with the course of reaction. Some of the major
of chemical process industries. Tbe major applications are found developments in this area have been reviewed in a book by
in the fields of extractive metallurgy, control of gaseous pollu- Szekely et .I. (1976) and in an edited monograph by Sohn and
tants, coal gasification processes, combustion of solid fuels, Wadsworth (1979) Since then considerable advances have taken
catalyst manufacture, etc. Tbe mathematical modeling of these place, and it is felt that there is a need for a comprehensive and
systems is important in order to interpret laboratory data critical review of the major recent developments in this area,
on these systems and in design and scaleup. The problem is and this review is written with this objective. Such a review also
complex since in addition to the interplay of heat and mass helps in evaluating some of the trends in research in this
transfer, other considerations are necessary to account for the field.
transient nature of the problem and the effects of changes in
A general type of gas-solid noncatalytic reaction may be r e p and such reactions are known as decomposition reactions. Finally
resented as another important class of reactions is where only gaseous products
are formed ( uc = 0)and such systems belong to the gasification
u A A(g) + V B B ( s )=& V P p k ) -k U C G(s) (i)
reactions. Special features of modeling of decomposition and
in which a gas and a solid react to give gas and solid products. In gasification reactions are also brought out in this review.
some cases a gas and solid may yield only solid products ( u p = 0). For modeling the general reactions represented by Eq. i, three
Modeling of these two types of reactions is very similar and dis- types of models have been proposed: (i) in which the solid is as-
cussed in considerable detail in this paper. In some cases a solid sumed to be nonporois, the reaction occumng in a topochemical
reactant decomposes to yield gaseous and solid products (uA = 0 ) manner; (ii) where the solid reactant is assumed to be porous; and
(iii) where the solid pellet is assumed to be composed of nonporous
subunits known as particles or grains. These models are fint dis-
a)ol.1541.81-82WQ T b e A ~ l r d t u l e d C W E n g l m r slWX2 cussed in the following sections.
demonstrated by Carberry (1961). For the more general case where Q is the local rate of reaction in terms of dimensionless
equations for predicting the complete transient temperature profile concentrations and is defined as:
in the pellet have been derived by Luss and Amundson (1969). Q=ambn (5)
Solutions of this in conjunction with the equations for the rate of
movement of the reaction interface provide a useful approach for The other dimensionless parameters 4,p, y and dimensionless time
obtaining both r-t and T ( r ) - t patterns of behavior of the pellet. T are defined in Table 1. (The stoichiometriccoefficient V A is taken
A fairly general computer programme for this purpose which also as unity here and in subsequent portions of the text without loss of
ws FILM'
LOW 0
LARGE 0 (.----- rn -1 ,-m<l 1
PARTICLE-PELLET OR GRAIN MODEL 2. In these equations, r* corresponds to the reduced quantity rei/
reo at a position y in the pellet. The grain model has five parameters
In this model the solid pellet is visualized as consisting of a k,, D,, D e ~reo, and grain shape. Detailed numerical solutions for
number of small particles or grains. Surrounding these grains are the isothermal case have been published by Calvelo and Smith
macropores through which the gas has to diffuse to reach the var- (1970) and Sohn and Szekely (1972b, 1974). An approximate an-
ious grains. The reaction occurs at the surface of each grain ac- alytical solution for isothermal case has been proposed by Evans
cording to the sharp interface model. A product layer will form and Ranade (1980), Sohn and Szekely (1972b, 1974) and Rama-
with time in the outer regions of each grain and these will in turn chandran (1982b). The formulation of the problem as above is for
offer some resistance to diffusion. A detailed analysis of this a spherical grain. A general formulation which assumes various
problem has been presented by Calvelo and Smith (1970) and grain shapes such as spheres, long cylinders and slabs has been
Szekely and Evans (1971a, b, c). The rate of reaction per unit vol- presented by Sohn and Szekely (1972b, 1974). The grain shape
ume of the pellet on the basis of the grain model assuming spherical factor may either have a physical basis (as when pellets are formed
grains is: by compaction) or it could be an empirical model parameter. There
is a close analogy between the grain shape factor and the order of
3(1 - 6 ) - - A
(rei)z reaction with respect to solid in the volume reaction model for the
TA =
1+-
re0
ks re0
rciks
Dt?C
( 1-- :;;) (16) situation when D,c
tively.
a.The values of n of 0,0.5 and 0.67 cor-
-+
and
MODELING OF STRUCTURAL. CHANGES W E TO REACTION where rc is the grain size at time t and r a is the initial grain size
and z, is the ratio of the molal volume of the product to the reactant
A number of structural changes occur in the solid during the defined as
course of reaction and a realistic model for gas-solid reactions
should account for these changes. The main reason to incorporate
these into the model is that existing models cannot predict certain
special behavior patterns which have been observed experi- The parameter z, determines the changes in particle (grain)
mentally. Some of these are: (a) leveling-off of conversion-time data dimensions. If zo < 1, the particles shrink during reaction; if z, >
far below complete conversion; (b) existence of maxima in the 1, swelling occurs; for z , = 1, there is no change in particle size as
rate-time data especially for gasification reactions; and (c) strong reaction progresses.
dependence of the reactivity of the solid on pore-size distribu- The porosity changes in the pellet can be related to changes in
tion. the particle size by the following equation:
The main structural changes are due to chemical reaction and
sintering. This section analyzes the effect of changes due to reaction
while effects of sintering will be presented in the next section. The
changes due to reaction are mainly caused by the differences in The change in the diffusivity can be assumed to be proportional
the molal volume of the reactant and the product. This causes a to 2 and this can be incorporated in the model equations. An il-
change in the porosity of the solid and in the effective diffusivity. lustrative result for an %thermal system is shown in Figure 3. The
A number of attempts have been made to model these effects, and conversion levels off to an asymptotic value (which is less than
Table 3 presents a summary of most of these. A comparison of some 100%)for some cases when z, > 1. Such incomplete conversions
of these models has been presented by Lindner and Simonsson have been experimentally observed for reaction of SO2 with
(1981). A discussion of the main classes of models to account for limestone (Hartman and Coughlin, 1974, 1976) and in the hy-
structural changes due to reaction is presented below. drofluorinationof U q (Costa and Smith, 1971). The models which
SCHEMATIC OF
A PARTIALLY REACTED GRAIN
SCHEMATIC OF
A PARTIALLY REACTED P E L L E T
Figure 2. Schematic representation of the changing grain size model.
SOLID 8
ASSOCIATED
W I T H THE
PORE
AFTER SOME R E A C T I O N
Flgure 4. Schematk representation of the single-poremodel.
Distributed Pore Models Equation 34 is the standard population balance equation which
assumes that there is no net fractional increase in the number of
These models are similar in concept to the single-pore model but pores by birth or death mechanisms; that is, it assumes that
take into account the effect of pore-size distribution. Some of the the total number of pores are conserved. In reaction systems where
recent approaches proposed in the literature are discussed a solid product is formed, there is no mechanism by which two
below. pores may intersect to produce new pores. Hence the birth
Christman and Edgar (1980)applied the single pore model lo- mechanism is absent. (This is unlike the case of gasification systems
cally at a point, r , in the pellet and for a pore of radius s1. This pore where the birth mechanism may also be present.) However pores
is assumed to be covered with an inner concentric product layer can be lost by collisions; that is, if two pores are close enough for
of thickness (s2 - s1). The reaction interface is thus a cylindrical their outer radii of reaction to touch each other, part of the reaction
surface at s2. At time t = 0, s1 = s10 (the initial pore radius) and s2 surface is lost. Incorporation of this will generalize the model
= 0. The values of s 1 and s2 at any time are related by an equation considerably but wiu require a complicated and exhaustive analysis
which is the same as that for a single pore model. of the problem which does not appear to have been made. A key
feature of the approach of Christman and Edgar (1980)is that the
+
s: = 2, sf0 (1 - 2,) s; (29) evolution of the pore structure with time and position can be pre-
The rate of reaction in kmol/s for this single pore is: dicted. Thus we obtainadditional information from the model such
(b)
Flgure 5. Development of reactlon surlace accordlng to the random pore model. The shaded area representsunreacted sololid 8. The dotted area represents
the product layer: (a) early stage showlng product layer around each pore; (b) Intermedlatestage, showlng some overlapplng reactionturlacr; and (c) later
stage, showlng full development of product layer and reactlon turlacs for the pertlcular vlew chosen (Bhetla and Perlmutter, 1981a).
as pore-size distribution at various stages of reaction, and this can surface with conversion. The authors then related these to the actual
be matched with experiments for a rational verification of the (or overlapped) surface by an equation similar to that of Avrami
model. (1940).Based on this model Bhatia and Perlmutter (1980)derived
Simons and Rawlins (1980)followed a somewhat different ap- the following equation for the conversion-timebehavior for the
proach to model the effect of pore-size distribution. They postu- case of kinetic control:
lated that each pore in the pellet reaches the surface as a trunk of
a tree. Thus the external surface of the pellet may be assumed to (37)
have a number of holes (or pores) with radii in the range of smln<
s < smaPA number density function can be defined accordingly. where
Thus the number of pores opening at the surface whose radius is
+
between s and s ds is given by 47rR2f(s)ds. The models can then 7 2 is a dimensionless time defined as
k,A,"S,t
1 - ,
be developed for each pore of radius s and then averaged over the
surface pore size distribution to obtain the average flux of the and 9 is a structural parameter defined as
gaseous reactant at the surface. This flux can in turn be related to
the average conversion of solid B. For each pore of radius s, Simons \k = 4nLO(1- c,)/S~ (38)
and Finson (1979) ascribed an associated internal surface area where So and L, are the reaction surface and total length of the
defined by the equation pore per unit pellet volume at time zero. Equation 37 is similar to
other models; for example, if 9 = 0 it reduces to the volume re-
action model with n = 1. Similarly the grain model behavior can
be closely approximated if 9 = 1.Thisalso leads to the conclusion
where KO is a constant called as the pore aspect ratio which is as- that the concept of reaction order with respect to solid is closely
signed a value around five. The pore size distribution functionf(s) related to the structure of the pores of the solid. A relation between
can be described by a suitable mathematical function to complete the order of reaction n and the structural parameter 9 has also
the definition of the problem. This will, of course, depend on the been obtained and this is shown graphically in Figure 6. Thus the
characteristics of the solid. Simons and Rawlins (1980) used the random pore model is able to offer a rational meaning to the re-
following type of relation: action order with respect to the solid.
In subsequent papers Bhatia and Perlmutter (1981a, 1981b)
f(s) = (36) extended this to consider the case of ash diffusion. The equation
21n sz
7rs3 for conversion-timebehavior at any point in the pellet was derived
(SmJ as
The model is mathematically simple to use and has been used
in the interpretation of the initial rate data for the reaction of SO2
and H2S with calcined limestone (Simons and Rawlins, 1980)and
char gasification (Lewis and Simons, 1979).
Recently Bhatia and Perlmutter (1980, 1981a, 198lb) have
proposed a model which takes into account the intersection of the This was incorporated into the diffusion equation for gas A in the
pores as reaction proceeds. The model is called the random pore pellet and the results were compared with the experimental data
model and it assumes that the actual reaction surface of solid B to of Borgwardt (1970) on reaction of S o 2 with limestones The model
be formed by a randomly overlapping set of cylindrical surfaces agreed with experimental data over a wide range of tempera-
of size distribution g(s) where g(s) ds is the total length of cylin- tures.
drical surfaces (per unit volume of space) having radii between s The model thus introduces one parameter 9 to account for the
+
and s ds. A schematic diagram of the model is shown in Figure pore-size distribution of the solid. Bhatia and Perlmutter (1981b)
have derived equations for P for various types of pore-size distri-
5 which depicts the product layer surrounding the pores at different
stages of the reaction. Bhatia and Perlmutter (1980)have derived bution such as bimodal, square, triangular, log-normal, normal,
equations for non-overlapped surface and volume of the reaction etc. For pores of uniform size the value of 9 is shown to be
ooo 0.5 $0
CORC STRUCTURE C*RUILTCR,
13
u
20
*=- 1
In (1 - co)
increase in tortuosity was correlated by Kim and Smith (1974)as
a function of the fractionsfp of the pores removed:
while for the general case
EFFECTS OF SINERING where Es is the activation energy for sintering and TM is a char-
acteristic temperature corresponding to the onset of sintering.
Many noncatalyfic reactions are accompanied by large tem- Generally TM will correspond to the Tamman temperature which
perature rise in the pellet and this can cause sintering of the pellet. is approximately half the melting point of the solid. The model
Sintering causes a decrease in the effective diffusivity of the pellet parameters introduced to account for the effect of sinteringare Afp,
and this must be accounted for in the modeling of processes where E, and TM and these can probably be estimated by independent
sintering is likely to be important. Evans et al. (1973)accounted sintering measurements on the solid, i.e., by measuring the porosity
for this by assuming an exponential decay in the effective diffu- and the effective diffusivity for various sintering times.
sivity with reaction time. An illustrative result of the effect of sintering on the conver-
Ramachandran and Smith (197%) have accounted for the effect sion-time behavior of an isothermal system is shown in Figure 3
of sintering on the rate of reaction based on the grain model. The for the case of z, = 0.5 (asdotted line). In this case normally pore
basis for this modeling was an earlier study by Kim and Smith closure is not expected due to chemical reaction as the parameter
(1974)who measured the effective diffusivity in nickel oxide pellets z, is less than unity. However the pore closure occurs due to the
during various stages of reduction. Both sintered and unsintered effect of sintering and results in incomplete conversion of the solid
pellets were used in their study. These authors proposed a model as shown in Figure 3.
for decrease in 0,due to sintering. According to this model, the Ranade and Harrison (1979,1981)approached the problem of
primary influence of sintering is to decrease the pore intercon- sintering effects in a different manner. In this model the sintering
nections. This causes a decrease in porosity of the pellet and a process is visualized to result in the combination of adjacent gr*,
drastic increase in the tortuosity factor 7fof the pellet. This increase the large number of small grains are assumed to be gradually re-
in 7 j is not only due to the decrease in the porosity of the pellet but placed by fewer of large radius. The change in grain size is related
also due to removal of some pore interconnections. The fractional to specific surfacearea of the grains which is described as a function
-
Crackling Core Model
44 G(s) + Pk) (ii) Park and Levenspiel (1975)proposed the wcalled cracklingcore
model to account for the sigmoidalbehavior of r vs. t plots in some
The decomposition reactions are modeled generally in terms of
-
observed systems. In this model the reaction is assumed to occur
the sharp interface model and the rate of decompition is assumed in two steps:
to be controlled by simultaneous transfer of mass away from and
Physical change
heat to the interface which separates the reactant and decomposed (1) A (nonporous) A (porous)
solid (Narsimhan, 1961;Hills, 1968;Campbell eta]., 1970). At the (v)
decompositioninterface, the concentration of the gaseous product (2) A (porous) product
+
(Vi)
P is assumed to be determined by the equilibrium of reaction (Eq. The first stage is a physical transformation of A from a nonporous
ii). structure to a more reactive porous structun vhich then undergoes
The model equations and results for conversion and temperature reaction according to the second step. The d e l can also be used
of the decomposing solid as a function of time have been well to represent a situation where the reaction of solid occurs in two
documented in the literature. In a recent paper Mu and Perlmutter consecutive steps. For example, in the reduction of hematite the
(1980) modified these models to take into account the effect of steps are
changes in pellet size arising from possible density differences
between reactant and product. Further in this work the effective +Hz +HZ +H2
Fe304 --+Fez03 +FeO Fe (vii)
diffusion coefficient of the product gas in the product layer (Dee)
was assumed to vary with the decomposition temperature T.The The first step results in the formation of a porous structure which
specific relationship of Dec vs. T depends on the diffusion mech- undergoes further reaction. Similar sequence occurs in the re-
anism prevailing in the solid pores. If the diffusion mechanism is duction by hydrogen of manganese oxide (De Bruijn et al.,
of the Knudsen type, D e is~proportional to while for ordinary 1980).
molecular diffusion the exponent of T is in the range of 1.5to 2.0.
The computational results of Mu and Perlmutter (1980) showed (viii)
that the effects due to changes in particle dimensions were more
significant than those due to the variation of Dec with temperature. The crackling core model has been successfully used in the inter-
In another recent study, Prasannan et al. (1982) incorporated the pretation of experimental data in such systems. Although the model
effects of nonequimolal diffusion of the product gas on the rate of can predict the qualitative features of these systems reasonably
decomposition. The effects are not important if the diffusion is in well, it is only an approximation and does not consider the basic
the Knudsen regime, while if the process is controlled by bulk mechanisms responsible for the sigmoidal behavior: One such
diffusion the analysis of the problem should include these ef- effect could be the nucleation effect which is discussed below.
fects.
Gokhale et al. (1975) reported some interesting observations on
the disproportionationof potassium benzoate to terephthalate (used Nucleation Models
-
in the manufacture of polyester intermediates) and benzene. Nucleation effects are often significant in some gas-solid reac-
2 CsH5COOK C&( COOK)z C& (iii) tions such as reduction of metallic oxides. Typical r-t behavior at
low temperatures for these systems shows three periods: (a) in-
The reaction with these pellets always started at the center and duction period; (b) acceleratory period; and (c) decaying period.
expanded radially outward. A delayed diffusion model has been These three stages arise from the following succession of events:
proposed by Kulkarni and Doraiswamy (1980) to explain these (1)formation of nuclei of the metallic phase at localized sites on
unusual observations. In this model the reaction is assumed to take the oxide surface; (2) growth of these nuclei; and (3)overlap of the
place in two steps with COZ being formed as an intermediate in growing nuclei and a decrease in the metal/oxide interface. The
the first step: The second step requires a critical partial pressure length of the induction period is most intimately connected with
of COZ which is first reached at the point of symmetry in the pellet. the rate of formation of nuclei. If the nuclei are formed fast (as is
This explains the initiation of the reaction (second step) at the the case at high reaction temperature or when the surface-to-vol-
center. An analytical solution for the rate of movement of the re- ume ratio is small) the entire surface gets covered rapidly with the
action interface radially outwards has been given by the same metallic phase and a metal/oxide interface develops. The reaction
authors. then proceeds in a topochemical manner. On the other hand, if the
An industrially important class of decompositionreactions occurs rate of nucleation is not very large, the metal/oxide interface will
in coal devolatilization or pyrolysis. These may be represented be irregular. The mathematical modeling of product layer diffusion
as
-
and chemical reaction for these two distinct situations is, of course,
Coal Residues + Volatiles (i.1
quite different. Some aspects of these have been discussed by Sohn
(1978) and Rao (1979). Formation and growth of nuclei in the Hz
although the actual process is very complex involvingthe formation reduction of wustite has been observed by El-Rahaiby and Rao
of several intermediates as pointed out in a review by Anthony and (1979).
Howard (1976).The volatiles which are formed during heating of A rate equation has been developed by Avrami (1939, 1940,
coal diffuses outward and as some of these are highly reactive free 1941) for the r-t relationship in the absence of pore diffusion:
radicals they undergo secondary reactions in the pores of the solid.
A model for intraparticle mass transfer effects in coal pyrolysis has In - = CtN (45)
(l-tr)
been proposed by Gavalas and Wilks (1980).Although the detailed
chemistry of the process is not well understood, the model proposed where C and N are constants and N depends on the rate of for-
CH3CI
I METHYL CHLOROSILANE
m - t\-Cu3Si PHASE
- - DIRECTION OF Si DIFFUSION
Figure 8. A physical model for reaction of silicon with methyl chloride (Voorhoeve, 1967).
The model of Petersen leads to the following equation for the Flgure 9. A comparlsonof the predlcllonsof randomcaplllary model wlth data
gasification reaction of a porous pellet in the absence of intrapar- on gaslflcatlon of char.
ticle gradients. (Szekely et al., 1976)
This coupled with suitable equations for the rate of formation of These forms of linear equations are very convenient in corre-
new pores and rate of pore coalescence provides the complete lating x - t or ( d x l d t )vs. r data and have been used by Gavalas
formulation of the problem. (1980)to correlate the data of Mahajan et al. (1978)and Dutta and
The effect of intraparticle diffusion was also considered in a Wen (1977) on gasification of char by oxygen. The model com-
subsequent paper. This could be characterized by a Thiele modulus parison is shown in Figure 9. In the absence of a detailed charac-
R o [ k ~ p ~ S o ~ o / v s D eIfo ]the
1 / 2modulus
. is greater than 10 the terization of the porous structure of char the parameters No and
shrinking core model can be used, while if it is less than 0.1 dif- N1 may be viewed as empirical correlating constants. Equation 53
fusional gradients may be ignored in the model formulation. The also predicts a maximum in the reaction rate when the following
model predicts a maximum in the relative surface area vs solid value of conversion is reached.
conversion behavior. The model needs large numbers of pa-
rameters to characterize the system and many of these can be o b
tained only by matching experimental data with theory.
Simons and Finson (1979) and Simons (1979) have also proposed
a similar model. This model deals with various important quantities
xmax rate = 1 - exp
I (1 31
- - - 27r -
Such a maximum in the rate curve has been observed, for instance,
(55)
such as density of pore intersections, length of pore segments. In by Dutta and Wen (1977)and the model of Gavalas correctly in-
this model the gasification rate is calculated by integrating the rate dicates this behavior.
of gasification per pore tree over the postulated pore-size dis- The random pore model of Bhatia and Perlmutter (1980) can
tribution. (See the section on Single-Pore Models.) also be used to model gasification processes. (For such a system the
c -210 2 co
+ -+
Consecutive Reactlons
co -210 2 co2
+ -+
These are encountered in the reduction of haematite by Hz or
CO. The reaction proceeds through the sequence indicated in Eq.
+
COZ c 2 c o +
(xi)
vii. Hence complex models are necessary to represent this problem.
Such models have been presented, for instance, by Spitzer et al.
Based on the published literature kinetics, reactions ix and xi were (1968)and Tsay et al. (1976), which account for the presence of
found to be predominant. The model predicts the existence of three three interfaces (Haematite/magnetite,magnetite/wiistite, wiis-
steady states under certain conditions. It does not however include tite/iron) in the pellet (Figure 10).Each step of the reaction is as-
the effects of structural changes. In a related study the process of sumed to take place at the sharp interface separating the respective
char gasification was analyzed by Srinivas and Amundson (198Ob). product and reactant. The application of other types of models and
The process was assumed to consist of four independent reactions, inclusion of structuralchanges appear to be an interesting possible
namely, steam gasification, carbon dioxide gasification, hydrc- future development in this area.
gasification and water gas shift reaction. A parametric study of the
various factors affecting the gasification process has been Presented Reaction of Two Gases
by these authors.
Reaction of two gases with the same solid is encountered in a
number of situations. Reduction of iron oreswith a mixture of re-
COMPLEX GAS-SOLID REACTKlN SYSTEMS ducing gases such as CO and Hz appears to be the most important
problem belonging to this class. Here the existence of four gaseous
The analysis in the earlier sections was mainly confined to the components (CO,Hg, COz and HzO) necessitates the use of gen-
case where a simple single step reaction takes place. Many of the eralized Stafan-Maxwell equations to characterize the diffusion
industrially important systems follow complex reaction schemes of the gases in the product layer. Such an approach has been fol-
and modeling of these becomes correspondingly difficult. No lowed by Tsay et al. (1976). The sharp interface model was again
Products
+
G + A2 U A ~ A ~ -
1. Simultaneousoxidation and sulfation of
cuprous oxide
Bourgeois, Jr. et a1 (1974)
'LETED COKE I
I HYDROGEN IN COKE
A*
HAEMATITE
REDUCED IRON Figure 11. Model for simultaneous carbon and hydrogen reaction for coke
oxidation (Ramachandran el al., 1975).
Figure 10. Three interface model for reduction of haematlte (Tsay et ai.,
1976).
used as the basis for this development; the two gases diffuse to this
SO2 + -210 2 + CaO - CaSOd (xiii)
sharp interface and react with the solid at this point. A key feature where Me represents a metallic element. A similar reaction se-
of this work is that multicomponent diffusional models have been quence occurs in the reduction of metal sulfides in the presence
used to describe the diffusion of the reacting and product gases in of CaO
2
(xvi)
fairly well.
A more complex version of reaction of two solid components of Although the above representation indicates that this is a solid-solid
the pellet occurs in the oxidation roasting of sulfide minerals in the reaction, the actual mechanism is through a gaseous intermediate
presence of lime (a process of likely importance in view of the Cop and can be represented as
emphasis on pollution abatement). Here the gaseous product of the
first reaction reacts with the second solid component. The systems
Me0 + CO + Me + C02 (xvii)
may be schematically represented as c02 +c ?== 2co (xviii)
3
-02
2
+Me, S + SO2 + Me, 0 (xii)
A detailed description of modeling of such reactions has been
described in the book by Szekely et al. (1976).A number of systems
SCOPE
The fluid mechanics of polymer processing constitutes an are normally incorporated in a rather arbitrary manner. Ex-
industrial problem that has not been completely solved. Elon- perimentally some shear history effects have been found by
gational flows, in particular transient ones as in spinning, turn Oliver and Ashton (1976), but no quantitative interpretation was
out to be difficult to describe (Denn, 1980). Attempts to model given.
spinning dynamics with rheological characteristics derived from Considering the more general interest of shear history effects
shear flow data, have show systematic errors (Spearot and in complex processing flows, some systematic experiments were
Metzner, 1972; Bankar et al., 1977; Chang and Denn, 1979). performed. They include spinning flow with a variable shear
Some promising results using relaxation time distributions history. As rheological constitutive equation, a structural ki-
should, however, be mentioned (Phan-Thien, 1978). netics model is used (De Cleyn and Mewis 1981) derived from
An additional problem arises in the case of spinning. This type that by Acierno et al. (1976). Model predictions of the spinning
of flow is always preceeded by an upstream flow in a tube and dynamics are used to assess the rheological model and to in-
a nozzle. The resulting initial conditions for the spinning line vestigate the effect of shear history.