ABSTRACT
Absorption is that chemical engineering operation which involves transfer of a condensable vapor from the vapor phase to a liquid phase. Absorption may occur as an intermediate or initiating step in a chemical reaction or series of reactions. Absorption belongs to the broad category of chemical engineering operations frequently referred to as “stagewise operations” or “equilibrium operations.” This category includes absorption, distillation, extraction, and other operations. One of the least well understood things in chemical engineering is the manner in which an absorber actually functions. For a system containing several absorbable components, the graphical procedure obviously becomes lengthy and tiresome. For this reason most engineers utilize the “absorption factor” approach when faced with a multi-component absorption problem. The material balance relationships for the stripping operation are essentially the same as for absorption. In multicomponent stripping the material balance equations are based on the same kind of equilibrium assumption as is the case for absorption.
