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Introduction To Column Distillation

A distillation column separates ethanol and water. The feed is 30 wt% ethanol at 10,000 kg/h and 40°C. The column operates at 1 kg/cm2 with a reflux ratio of 3.0. The problem involves calculating properties of the distillate and bottoms streams.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
18 views

Introduction To Column Distillation

A distillation column separates ethanol and water. The feed is 30 wt% ethanol at 10,000 kg/h and 40°C. The column operates at 1 kg/cm2 with a reflux ratio of 3.0. The problem involves calculating properties of the distillate and bottoms streams.

Uploaded by

Abdul Quddus
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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CFE 3713

Separation Process Engineering

Md. Jahirul Islam


Lecturer
Chemical and Food Engineering Department
Dhaka University ofEngineering and Technology, Gazipur
Objectives

❑ Basic principle of distillation


❑ Calculation of number of stages
required

© 2020-21 Md. Jahirul Islam


Cascade of flash chambers
Variable pressures
• The cascading procedure can be extended into a process that
produces one pure vapor and one pure liquid product
• First, the vapor streams can be sent to additional flash chambers
at increasing pressures and the liquid streams to flash chambers
with decreasing pressures
• One difficulty with this cascade is that the
intermediate product streams, L1, L2, V4,
and V5, are of intermediate concentration
and need further separation.

© 2020-21 Md. Jahirul Islam


Cascade of flash chambers
Variable pressure
• Since the material in L2 has been vaporized once and condensed
once, it probably has a concentration close to that of the original
feed stream.
• Thus, it is appropriate to use L2 as an additional feed stream to
stage 3. However, since p2 > p3, its pressure must first be
decreased.
• A similar argument can be applied to the
intermediate vapor products below the
feed, V4 and V5. V4 was obtained by
partially condensing the feed stream and
then partially vaporizing the resulting liquid.
Since its concentration is approximately the
same as the feed, stream V4 can be used as
an additional feed to stage 3 after
compression to a higher pressure.
© 2020-21 Md. Jahirul Islam
Cascade of flash chambers
Variable Temperatures
• Although a significant advance, this variable pressure (or
isothermal distillation) system is seldom used commercially.
Operation at different pressures requires a larger number of
compressors, which are expensive.
• It is much cheaper to operate at constant pressure
and force the temperature to vary. Thus, in stage 1
of Figure 3-2 a relatively low temperature would be
employed, since the concentration of the more
volatile component, which boils at a lower
temperature, is high. For stage 5, where the less
volatile component is concentrated, the
temperature would be high. To achieve this
temperature variation, we can use heat exchangers
(reboilers) to partially vaporize the liquid streams.

© 2020-21 Md. Jahirul Islam


Cascade of flash chambers
Countercurrent cascade of flash chambers with reflux and boilup
• The previous cascade has a decreasing vapor flow
rate as we go from the feed stage to the top
stage and a decreasing liquid flow rate as we go
from the feed stage to the bottom stage.
Operation and design will be easier if part of the
top vapor stream V1 is condensed and returned
to stage 1 and if part of the bottom liquid stream
L5 is vaporized and returned to stage 5, as
illustrated in Figure 3-4. This allows us to control
the internal liquid and vapor flow rates at any
desired level. Stream D is the distillate product,
while B is the bottom product. Stream L0 is called
the reflux while V6 is the boilup.

© 2020-21 Md. Jahirul Islam


Cascade of flash chambers
Countercurrent cascade with intermediate heat exchangers
• The use of reflux and boilup allows for a further
simplification. We can now apply all the heat
required for the distillation to the bottom
reboiler, and we can do all the required cooling in
the top condenser.
• stream V2 is partially condensed by stream L1
while L1 is simultaneously partially vaporized.
• Since the heat of vaporization per mole is usually
approximately constant, condensation of 1 mole
of vapor will vaporize approximately 1 mole of
liquid. Thus liquid and vapor flow rates tend to
remain constant. Heat exchangers can be used
for all other pairs of passing streams: L2 and V3,
L3 and V4, and L4 and V5.
© 2020-21 Md. Jahirul Islam
Cascade of flash chambers
Distillation column
• The previous cascade can be further
simplified by building the entire
system in a column instead of as a
series of individual stages. The
intermediate heat exchange can be
done very efficiently with the liquid
and vapor in direct contact on each
stage. The result is a much simpler
and cheaper device.

© 2020-21 Md. Jahirul Islam


Distillation column

© 2020-21 Md. Jahirul Islam


Column Internals

© 2020-21 Md. Jahirul Islam


Distillation Column

© 2020-21 Md. Jahirul Islam


Column Notation
• As the top product (distillate) is
highly concentrated in the more
volatile component. The section of
the column above the feed stage is
known as the enriching or
rectifying section
• The bottom product (bottoms) is
highly concentrated in the less
volatile component, since the more
volatile component has been
stripped out by the rising vapors.
This section is called the stripping
section.

© 2020-21 Md. Jahirul Islam


Specifications
Usual specified variables for binary distillation
• Column pressure (which sets the equilibrium data)
• Feed composition
• Flow rate
• Feed temperature or feed enthalpy or feed quality
• Temperature or enthalpy of the reflux liquid(usually
saturated liquid)

© 2020-21 Md. Jahirul Islam


Design Problems
❑ In design problems, the desired separation is set,
and a column is designed that will achieve this
separation. Mole fraction of the more volatile
component in the distillate and bottoms products.
the external reflux ratio, L0/D are usually specified
❑ The designer’s job is to calculate distillate and
bottoms flow rates, the heating and cooling
requirements in the reboiler and condenser, the
number of stages required and the optimum feed
stage location, and finally the required column
diameter.

© 2020-21 Md. Jahirul Islam


Simulation Problems
• In simulation problems, the column has already been
built and we wish to predict how much separation can
be achieved for a given feed. Since the column has
already been built, the number of stages and the feed
stage location are already specified. In addition, the
column diameter and the reboiler size, which usually
control a maximum vapor flow rate, are set.
• The engineer would then determine the reflux ratio
and unknown product composition and check the
vapor flow rate. The thread that runs through all
these alternatives is that since the column has been
built, some method of specifying the separation must
be used.
© 2020-21 Md. Jahirul Islam
External Column Balances
Assumptions
• The column is well insulated
and can be considered
adiabatic.
• All the heat transfer takes
place in the condenser and
reboiler.
• Column pressure is assumed to
be constant.

Binary distillation column: Circled variables


are typically specified in design problems

© 2020-21 Md. Jahirul Islam


External Column Balances: Overall
From the balances around the entire column, we wish to calculate distillate and bottoms
flow rates, D and B, and the heat loads in the condenser and reboiler, Qc and QR.

The overall mass balance:


F=B+D
More volatile component mass balance:
Fz = BxB + DxD
z − xB
D=
xD − xB
xD − z
B=F−D= F
xD − xB
For the energy balance we will use the convention that all heat loads will be treated
as inputs. If energy is removed, then the numerical value of the heat load will be
negative.
The steady-state energy balance around the entire column is
FhF + QC + QR = DhD + BhB
The column is assumed to be well insulated and adiabatic. QR will be positive and Qc
negative. The enthalpies can all be determined from an enthalpy-composition
diagram or from the heat capacities and latent heats of vaporization. In general,
hF = hF (z, TF , p), hD = hD xD , Treflux , p , hB = hB (xB , saturated liquid, p)

© 2020-21 Md. Jahirul Islam


External Column Balances: Condenser
The total condenser changes the phase of the entering vapor stream but does not
affect the composition. Thus,
𝑦1 = 𝑥𝐷 = 𝑥0

The condenser mass balance is


𝑉1 = 𝐿0 + 𝐷
Since the external reflux ratio, L0/D, is specified, we can substitute its
value ,
𝐿0 𝐿0
𝑉1 = 𝐷+𝐷 = 1+ 𝐷
𝐷 𝐷
The condenser energy balance is

© 2020-21 Md. Jahirul Islam


External Column Balances: Reboiler

© 2020-21 Md. Jahirul Islam


Problem
A steady-state, countercurrent, staged distillation column is to be used to
separate ethanol from water. The feed is a 30 wt % ethanol, 70 wt % water
mixture at 40°C. Flow rate of feed is 10,000 kg/h. The column operates at a
pressure of 1 kg/cm2. The reflux is returned as a saturated liquid. A reflux ratio
of L/D = 3.0 is being used. We desire a bottoms composition of xB = 0.05
(weight fraction ethanol) and a distillate composition of xD = 0.80 (weight
fraction ethanol). The system has a total condenser and a partial reboiler. Find
D, B, Qc, and QR.

© 2020-21 Md. Jahirul Islam


Solution

© 2020-21 Md. Jahirul Islam

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