Drying of Nitrogen and Scale-Up of a Column. Using molecular sieves, water vapor was removed from nitrogen gas in a packed bed (C1) at 28.3°C. The column height was 0.268 m, with the bulk density of the solid bed being equal to 712.8 kg/m³. The initial water concentration in the solid was 0.01 kg water/kg solid and the mass velocity of the nitrogen gas was 4052 kg/m² · h. The initial water concentration in the gas was c_o = 926 × 10 ^–6 kg water/kg nitrogen. The breakthrough data are as follows:

A value of c/c_o = 0.02 is desired at the break point. Do as follows:

a. Determine the break-point time, the fraction of total capacity used up to the break point, the length of the unused bed, and the saturation loading capacity of the solid.

b. For a proposed column length H_T = 0.40 m, calculate the breakpoint time and fraction of total capacity used.