Numerical calculation of simultaneous mass transfer of two gases accompanied by complex reversible reactions

A discretization technique is described, which makes it possible to calculate numerically mass transfer behaviour between two media in which complex chemical reactions occur. To show the stability of the technique it has been applied to the industrially well-known system of simultaneous absorption or desorption of H2S and CO2 to or from an amine solution, accompanied by simultaneously occurring strongly interfering overall chemical reaction(s) of complex, non elementary kinetics. For previously published limit cases of the transfer system considered, i.e. for the single transfer of H2S or CO2 accompanied by reversible chemical reaction, a comparison has been made with analytical and approximate solutions of previous authors. The agreement is very good. In studying simultaneous transfer of H2S and CO2, on which hardly any previous work was available, special attention has been paid to the effects of the reversibility of the reactions involved. It has been shown how, under certain conditions due to reversibility occurring in the transferzone, desorption takes place though absorption would be expected on basis of the driving forces. This revealed that not only enhancement factors larger than unity but also smaller, even negative values are possible.