Emergence of convective flows during diffusional mass transfer in ternary gas systems: The effect of component concentrations

Abstract

Specific features of diffusional mass transfer in ternary gas mixtures and their relation to the concentration of the densest component in a mixture are studied experimentally under isothermic conditions. At certain compositions of the gas mixture, unique diffusion regimes develop in the system that are characterized by a considerable rate of mass transfer and are attributed to the presence of concentration convection. We show that transitions from the diffusional and convective regimes can be predicted using the stability theory extended to isothermal mixing in ternary gas systems. Theoretical predictions are compared to experimental data.