Plant Engineering • Mass Balance

Plant Mass Balance

Represent the whole plant as an ordered chain of unit operations. Raw intake feeds the first stage; every stage splits its feed into product and waste, the product becomes the next stage’s feed (plus any make-up), and the plant’s own product and waste close the balance at the end. Every row is checked — water and, when TDS is supplied, salt.

Unit operations, in process order

Product flows to the next stage. Recovery is the % of the stage feed leaving as product.

Method and references

Each stage balances feed = product + waste where product = feed × recovery/100. Concentrate TDS is derived by salt conservation, Cw = (Qf·Cf − Qp·Cp) / Qw, and never assumed. The plant closes when intake + make-up = plant product + plant waste. Checks reuse verifyFlowBalance and verifyStreamBalance.

  • Engine: plantMassBalance.ts, reusing massBalance.ts.
  • Concentrate TDS derived by conservation is a planning figure — confirm against solubility / scaling data for the actual salts.