Define if water vapor is removed from a gas mixture containing 15 mol% H2O, 10 mol% CO, and the balance CO2 using a membrane which is permeable only to H2O (g). The gas mixture go in the membrane separation unit at 35°C; the dried gas mixture leaves the separator containing 2.0 mol% H2O (g) and it is still at 35°C. Throughout the process, water vapor from the gas mixture passes through the membrane into an air stream flowing on the opposite side of the membrane. The air go in the separation unit at 75 °C with an absolute humidity of 0.002 kg H2O/kg dry air also leaves at 73 °C. The separation unit operates at 1 atm.
a. Depict and label a flowchart of the process, and show via DOF analysis that you can solve for all the unknowns.
b. Compute i) the ratio of entering air to entering gas mixture (kg air/mol gas mixture) and ii) the relative humidity of the exiting air.