Mass and heat transfer to spheres, cylinders and planar surfaces: A unified "film" model description

We develop a unified film model description of mass and heat transfer from binary mixtures to spherical, cylindrical and planar surfaces. The model shows that while the Sherwood (Nusselt) number has a lower asymptotic value of 2, there is no corresponding asymptote for transfer to cylindrical objects. The influence of finite mass transfer fluxes on the mass and heat transfer coefficients is described in a unified manner for all geometries in terms of a generalized Ackermann factor. This correction factor is independent of geometry. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd.