Mass Balance

Mass Balance Skill

Trigger Patterns

• "solve mass balance"
• "calculate mass balance"
• "material balance"
• "conservation of mass"
• "feed and product streams"

Steps

1. Identify the system boundary — Draw a control volume around the process unit(s)
2. List all streams — Feed streams (in), product streams (out), recycle streams
3. Write the general equation — Accumulation = In − Out + Generation − Consumption
4. For steady-state — Accumulation = 0, so: In + Generation = Out + Consumption
5. For non-reactive — Generation = Consumption = 0, so: In = Out
6. Solve — Use scipy.optimize or numpy for linear/nonlinear systems
7. Verify — Check that all component balances and overall balance close to within 0.1%

Example