100% input splits into branches at each step. Rejected and retained portions tracked.
A free, animated mass balance cascade you can read here or embed on any website, from Scrollchart.
Mass Balance Cascade
A mass balance cascade tracks a fixed total (100%) as it passes through a sequence of stages, each of which splits the flow into a retained portion that continues and a rejected portion that exits. The vertical mainline narrows at each step, visually encoding how much material or volume survives to the next stage. The angled branches record what was removed and why.
The diagram is named for the mass-balance principle from chemistry and chemical engineering: matter is conserved, so inflow always equals retained plus rejected at each stage. Applied outside engineering, the same logic holds: 1000 applicants enter, 400 pass a screening, 400 plus 600 rejected equals 1000.
Common uses include: ETL pipeline record counts (rows loaded, rows rejected, rows transformed), clinical trial participant flow (enrolled, randomized, completed, lost to follow-up), and manufacturing yield tracking (raw material in, scrap out, finished goods out).
Editorial pages where a quick visual replaces a wall of text
Content-marketing posts that need a clean, branded illustration
Source & accuracy
This mass balance cascade is an editorial illustration built to represent the concept accurately. Where it shows figures, they are typical or representative values chosen to make the relationship clear, not a single underlying dataset. The diagram and its explainer are reviewed and maintained centrally, and updated over time as understanding improves.
Input splits and retention at every gate
A mass balance cascade starts with 100% of an input and tracks what fraction is retained and what fraction is rejected at each step. The retained portion flows forward as input to the next stage; the rejected portion is removed from the system. Each stage's output sums to 100% of the input at that gate. This diagram is widely used in chemistry (batch processing, yield at each reaction step), biology (species survival through a food chain), and supply chain analysis (defect filtering, grade separation).
Computing overall recovery and yield
If each stage retains a fraction r1, r2, r3, the overall yield is the product r1 * r2 * r3. A cascade where each stage loses 10% yields only 73% overall recovery. The diagram highlights the compounding effect: even small losses at each stage produce significant total losses downstream. This is why improving early-stage yield often has the highest ROI and why cascade analysis is central to process optimization.
Embed this diagram
Add this animated mass balance cascade to your own site. Copy one line of HTML, or use the embed builder for theme and sizing options.
Reference
What this is
A free, embeddable, animated mass balance cascade for any website.
Who uses it
Data journalists, Researchers & academics, Content marketers, News organizations.
How to embed
Copy one line of HTML. No signup. No watermark. Works in WordPress, Webflow, Ghost, Substack, plain HTML.
File size
iframe embed, ~80 KB gzipped (loads on demand, does not block your page paint).
License
Free forever. Editorial explainer text included; updated centrally over time.
Copy the universal HTML snippet, the WordPress shortcode, or an iframe fallback -
see the WordPress plugin page for details. Any format keeps
the same Core Web Vitals profile and the same explainer text.
By embedding, you acknowledge the diagram and explainer text are served from scrollchart.com and may be updated from time to time to reflect new research or to link to relevant sources within the explainer.
Frequently asked questions
Where can I get a free animated "Mass Balance Cascade" for my website?
Scrollchart provides "Mass Balance Cascade" as a free, embeddable animated diagram you can add to any website with one line of HTML. No signup is required and there is no watermark. The diagram and its explainer text are served from scrollchart.com, so the embed stays current without any maintenance on your end.
How do I embed a mass balance cascade in a blog post or article?
Paste the one-line HTML snippet from the Scrollchart diagram page into your post editor. It works in WordPress, Webflow, Ghost, and plain HTML with no plugin required. The animated diagram and its explainer text load from scrollchart.com and render directly in your page DOM.