Sharif University of Technology

Chemical & Petroleum Engineering Department

Computer Aided Process Design

HW1

Supervisor:

Dr. Farhadi

Author:
Arman Mohammadi
95201382

Fall 2016
Arman Mohammadi- 95201382

Abstract
Separation process has extensive applications in chemical engineering unit
operations. It involves with the thermodynamics of phase equilibrium. There are
several methods for separating components of a mixture. Choosing the method for
separation depends on the component’s physical properties. For systems that
components have great enough relative volatility, the flash evaporation can be a
suitable case for separation. For simulation of this unit operation, the suitable base
method and thermodynamic system should be specified by comparing the result of
thermodynamic analysis with experimental data. In this paper, the separation of
Acetone in a binary mixture of 50-50 mole % Acetone-Water has been investigated
using flash evaporation. Several scenarios have been studied and the effect of
pressure and temperature of the flash drum on the purity and flow rate of recovered
Acetone is monitored in different cases. Also, the successive flash drums have been
studied in order to receive to pure Acetone. The simulations have been done using
ASPEN ONE V8.0.

Keywords: Flash evaporation, Thermodynamics, physical property

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1. Introduction
The substantial number of the unit operation of chemical engineering are concerned
with the problem of changing the composition of the solutions through methods not
necessarily involving chemical reactions. The importance of these operations is
crucial. There is rarely any chemical process which does not require a preliminary
purification of raw materials or final separation of products from by-products.
There are several methods for mass transfer operation that can be classified into two
major classes, the first is direct separation operations that separate mixture
components without using other solvents. Evaporation and distillation can be
included in this category. The second class includes mass transfer operations that
use a third component for separation of the desired component in the mixture.
Liquid-liquid extraction, absorption can be included in this class. [1]
One of the simplest unit operation in the chemical engineering plant is flash (or
partial) evaporation that is one of the direct mass transfer unit operations.
The name originates from the fact that a liquid at a pressure equal to or greater than
its bubble point pressure “flashes” or partially evaporates when the pressure is
reduced, producing a two phase system of vapor and liquid in equilibrium. During
this process, the light components leave the liquid phase and evaporate so the
temperature of the liquid phase decrease because of partial evaporation in other
words when part of liquid evaporates it give its enthalpy of phase change from the
liquid, there for the enthalpy of remaining liquid decrease and its temperature falls
down. [2]
A chemical engineer faced with the problem of separating the components of a
solution must ordinarily choose from several possible methods. In order to choose
the best method for separating the components of a solution, the different properties
of the components should be investigated. Then that property of the desired
component which has significant different from the other components of the mixture
can be selected for separation and the plant design will be based on this choice.
For instance, when two component of a binary mixture have different volatility they
can be separated by partial evaporation or distillation. If the relative volatility of the
components is great enough the partial evaporation is preferable because it is more
economical than distillation.

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2. thermodynamic model and physical property method

Selecting the appropriate physical property methods is the essential first step that
will affect all subsequent tasks in the simulation. In other words, chose of the
physical properties method is the most important part of the simulation. because it
is the first section of any simulation and without a good model for prediction the
physical properties of mixture and components the simulation’s results will be
invalid. [3]
In this paper, the validity of four thermodynamics model including PRMHV2,
NRTL, MARGULES and UNIFAC is studied.
To assess the validity of the models, their results was compared to the experimental
data (Constant-Pressure Liquid-Vapor Equilibrium) that are provided by Perry [4]
for Acetone-Water mixture at the constant pressure equal to 101.325 k Pa.
Eric C. Carlson [3] suggested UNIFAC thermodynamic model due to his decision
trees to select the best property for this mixture. So in addition to models that are
been asked, UNIFAC and NRTL was investigated in this paper.
Table 1-2 show the experimental data. Results of the simulation using different
models are compared with experimental data in Figure 1-2 to 4-2.
All of the results of these models were obtained from the ASPENPLUS V8.0 except
MARGULES model because ASPENPLUS software doesn’t have this model there
for ASPENHYSYS V8.0 was used to obtain the results of this thermodynamic
model.

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110

100 T-y 101.3 kPa

T-x 101.3kPa
90 Experimental
Temperature,°C

80

70

60

50

40
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Liquid/vapor mole fraction, ACETONE

Figure 1- Txy diagram for WATER / ACETONE using PRMHV2

110

100
T-y 101.3kPa

90 T-x 101.3 kPa

Temperature,°C

Experimental
80

70

60

50
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Liquid/vapor mole fraction, ACETONE

Figure 2- Txy diagram for WATER / ACETONE using NRTL

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102
T-y 101.3 kPa

92 T-x 101.3 kPa

Temperature,°C

Experimental
82

72

62

52
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Liquid/vapor mole fraction, ACETONE

Figure 3- Txy diagram for WATER / ACETONE using UNIFAC

102
T-y 101.3 kPa

92 T-x 101.3 kPa

Temperature,°C

Experimental
82

72

62

52
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Liquid/vapor mole fraction, ACETONE

Figure 4 - Txy diagram for WATER / ACETONE using MARGULES

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As shown in figure 1, PRMHV2 method overestimates the mole fraction of Acetone

in liquid and vapor phases that are in equilibrium at the constant pressure equal to
101.325 kPa and various temperature.
As can be seen in figure 2, NRTL method underestimate the mole fraction of
Acetone in both phases. Figure 3 shows UNIFAC method is a good choice for the
thermodynamic system of Acetone and water system at atmospheric pressure. The
results obtained from UNIFAC thermodynamic method perfectly match with
experimental data at the atmospheric pressure.
As figure 4 shows, MARGULES method is incapable of predicting the equilibrium
of Acetone-Water mixture and its results are far from the experimental data.
A thermodynamic method may give good results in a situation, while cannot predict
physical properties of the system in other cases as temperature, pressure or
concentration values are different from the previous ones. Hence, to evaluate the
accuracy of a thermodynamic method for a certain range of temperature and pressure
using a set of experimental data is not sufficient. so if a high accuracy is desired for
physical properties of the system it is better to use several thermodynamic base
method and employ the appropriate method for each situation.
In many cases when a thermodynamic base method can predict the physical
properties of a system well in a condition, it can be used in other situation and
approximately be efficient.
In the following, another series of experimental is used to evaluate thermodynamic
models. This experimental data is provided by Sherwood [4] for Acetone and Water
mixture at 20 °C and various pressure. Table 1 shows this experimental data.
Table 1- – Experimental data of Acetone-Water at 20 °C

Mole fraction of Acetone in Partial pressure of

liquid, xA Acetone in vapor,
Pa(mmHg)
0 0
0.0333 30.0
0.0720 62.8
0.117 85.4
0.171 103

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Note: in the homework (Two stages flash separation) is mentioned that xA is the mole
percent of Acetone according to data that is obtained from the NIST databank in
ASPENPLUS V8.0 software, it seems incorrect and it is better to consider the x A as
the mole fraction of Acetone.
Another important subject is that the partial pressure is defined as the pressure that
would be exerted by one of the gasses in a mixture if it occupied the same volume
on its own. When the gas mixture is a non-ideal gas mixture, Dalton’s law is not
valid and the real pressure that a component of mixture exerts determined by its
fugacity and isn’t equal to yip. anyway, partial pressure is defined exactly as yip for
either ideal or non-ideal gas mixtures.
To increase confidence about this subject the ASPENPLUS simulator was used to
obtain the partial pressure at two situations that one is an ideal and other is non-ideal.
the result of two situations was that the partial pressure is calculated from Dalton’s
law for both cases, while the fugacity coefficient in the non-ideal gas mixture isn’t
equal to unity.
In this study the maximum pressure of the gas phase is 3 bar, therefore, the gas phase
shows almost an ideal behavior so the partial pressure of the components can be
calculated by multiplying mole fraction by pressure.
The objective of calculating the partial pressure is providing the data from the
various thermodynamic method for comparing with experimental data.
Table 2 – experimental data from NIST databank at 20 °C

Liquid mole Vapor mole Total Partial pressure

fraction of fraction of pressure (Pa) of
Acetone Acetone Acetone(mmHg)
0 0 2340 0
0.052 0.754 9030 51.069
0.097 0.832 13120 81.875
0.189 0.882 16910 111.569
0.399 0.905 20370 138.27

Figure 5 shows the experimental data from NIST databank, Sherwood, and some
thermodynamics base method.
It can be deduced from this figure that when liquid mole fraction of Acetone is lower
than 0.1 all of the models cannot match with experimental data.
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UNIFAC overestimate the partial pressure of Acetone in vapor phases. PRMHV2

and NRTL method underestimate the partial pressure of Acetone.
As the mole fraction of Acetone in liquid phase increases UNIFAC’s results
approach to experimental data better than other methods.

120
Experimental-T.K. Sherwood

UNIFAC
100
NIST data

PRMHV2
80
NRTL
PA

60

40

20

0
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2
XA

Figure 5 - comparison between UNIFAC , PRMHV2, NRTL and experimental data from NIST and Sherwood at 20°C

Based on what was has discussed above, UNIFAC is the best thermodynamic
method compared with other alternatives. So it will be used as the base method for
physical properties of the system in simulations.

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3. single step flash design to 90 percent recovery

In this section it’s assumed that a single flash drum is available, now the question
is that what would be the flash drum temperature and pressure to recovery the 90
percent of the inlet molar flow of Acetone.
The feed’s specifications are summarized in table 3. Average molecular weight of
the feed can be calculated by summation of product the mole fraction of each
component by its molecular weight. The mole flow of the feed is equal to its mass
flow divided by molecular weight.
Table 3 – feed specifications summery

Feed specification value

Temperature (°C) 20
Pressure (bar) 3
Mole percent of Acetone 50
Molecular weight 38.07
Mass flow (kg/hr) 135
Mole flow (kmole/hr) 3.546

As seen in table 3 the total mole flow of the binary mixture is equal to 3.546 kmole
per hour so the Acetone mole flow in the feed is equal to 1.773 kmole per hour.
There for 1.595 kmole per hour of the Acetone should be recovered to achieve 90
percent recovery of the inlet molar flow of Acetone.
Certainly, for any given pressure, there is a range of temperature that for this
temperature the 90 percent recovery is satisfied. This issue can be elicited by phase
diagram at constant pressure. In other words, for any given pressure you can find a
temperature that for any temperature above that up to dew point the minimum
recovery is 90 percent. But as temperature increases, the purity of vapor phase
decreases so it can be concluded that the best temperature for a constant pressure of
a flash drum is the minimum temperature that satisfies the desired recovery.
For a constant pressure, it is possible to determine the purity and recovery of Acetone
at the various temperature from bubble point to dew point temperature using
ASPENPLUS Sensitivity Analysis. This is performed and some of the results are
provided in the attached excel file. in order to study the effect of flash drum’s
pressure on the purity and recovery, the sensitivity analysis was done at various
pressure. Figure 6 shows the minimum temperature for 90 percent recovery and its
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-corresponding Acetone mole percent in the vapor phase, as can be understood from
this figure decreasing flash drum’s pressure results in decreasing temperature and
increasing the purity of recovered Acetone.

120 1

0.9
100
0.8

Vapor mole fraction, Acetone

0.7
80
Temperature (°C)

0.6

60 0.5
Temperature
0.4
40 Purity
0.3

0.2
20
0.1

0 0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
Pressure(bara)

Figure 6 – comparison purity and minimum temperature for 90% of Acetone at various pressure

Another important subject is the flash drum heat load at any condition. In the
practical situation to keep the flash drum’s temperature at a certain value, it should
be heated or cooled by some heat transfer equipment such as a coil, or maybe it is
better to change the temperature of the feed before entering flash drum to reduce the
heat load of flash drum.
Figure 7 shows the heat charge that should be transferred to the mixture through the
flash operation for the various pressure that mentioned above. It is obvious that as
pressure decreases the required heat load decreases. So the lower pressure is better
than higher ones in terms of energy saving.

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7000

6500

6000
Duty (cal/sec)
5500

5000

4500

4000

3500

3000
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
Flash drum's Pressure(bara)

Figure 7- flash drum's duty without heat transfer to feed at various pressure

It can be concluded from all discussed above that, as the flash drum’s pressure
decreases the purity of recovered Acetone and required heat duty increases. But
practically it is difficult to provide vacuum and keep it in the flash drum. When the
pressure of the flash drum is set lower than atmospheric pressure, it is necessary to
use the vacuum pumps or steam ejector to supply this vacuum. Subsequently, it will
need more investment. There for the atmospheric pressure seems to be the good
choice for drum’s pressure. At the pressure equal to 1 bar and 66 °C, the mole
fraction of recovered Acetone is about 0.76 and 90 percent of inlet molar flow is
recovered.
Finally, all of above cases should be economically evaluate and the most economic
case be selected.
A crucial subject that must be considered is the waste disposal. The liquid product
of flash drum must be processed and more Acetone is recovered because it isn’t
economical and environmentally reasonable to not purify it.
To purify the liquid output of drum, it is necessary to use more flash operations or
maybe an alternative that can be distillation process. Both of these plans will be
discussed in next sections.

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4. Saturated pressure of Acetone in 50-50 mixture!

Saturated vapor pressure is defined as “The pressure exerted by the vapor of a
substance's pure liquid (or solid) phase when, at a given temperature, it is in
equilibrium. [5] in this definition it’s obvious that saturated vapor pressure is defined
for a pure substance. In other words, the partial pressure of a component in a mixture
is meaningless because it just depends on temperature.
It should be noted that when at a constant temperature the pressure of a liquid
mixture decreases it begins to vaporize at its bubble pressure if the pressure
decreases more and more the vapor fraction of two- phase mixture increases until
the pressure reaches to dew pressure of the mixture. Therefore, a mixture doesn’t
have a boiling point or saturated point but it has a saturated range and it is between
bubble point and dew point of the mixture.
At the bubble pressure, the first bubble of the gas composition depends on the
composition of the primary mixture. The first bubble doesn’t include only the light
component of the mixture and surely it contains the other components.
According to what was discussed above the bubble pressure of the mixture isn’t
equal to light component vapor pressure. It can be calculated by solving the
equilibrium equations of the system because the first bubble leaves the liquid phase
at equilibrium condition.
The bubble and dew pressure of a defined binary mixture depends on temperature.
Figure 8 shows the ASPENPLUS outputs for bubble and dew pressure versus
temperature for 50- mole percent of Acetone-Water mixture.

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16

14 Bubble curve

12
Dew curve
Pressure(kPa)

10

0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
Temperature(°C)

Figure 8 – phase envelope of 50% Acetone-Water mixture

It is asked that for flash drums “Do you prefer lower P at higher T or higher P at
lower T?”
To answer this question, it should be noted that when the pressure decreases in order
to have a two- phase mixture and a reasonable result in flash operation, the
temperature must be lower otherwise we won’t achieve to two- phase mixture. There
for lower pressure and higher temperature cannot be simultaneous if a good
separation is desired.

5. T-xy diagram at P = 3,2,0.1 bara

Figure 9-11 represent the T-xy diagram of Acetone-Water mixture at 3,2 and 0.1 bar,
respectively. As can be seen from these figures, the space between two branches of
T-xy diagram increases as pressure decreases. Physically, it means that with a simple
flash evaporation, at low pressure the vapor phase product of flash operation
contains light component more than high pressure. as a result, the separation will be
simplest at low pressure.
The branches of Txy diagram approaches together at high pressure so that it maybe
forms an azeotrope mixture, but in lower pressure azeotrope will not be formed.

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140

130 T-y 3 bara

T-x 3bara
120
Temperature,°C

110

100

90

80
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Liquid/vapor mole fraction, ACETONE

Figure 9- Txy diagram for Acetone-Water using UNIFAC at 3 bara

105
T-y 1 bara
95 T-x 1 bara
Temperature,°C

85

75

65

55

45
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Liquid/vapor mole fraction, ACETONE

Figure 10- Txy diagram for Acetone-Water using UNIFAC at 1 bara

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70
T-y 0.2 bara
60 T-x 0.2bara
Temperature,°C

50

40

30

20

10
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Liquid/vapor mole fraction, ACETONE

Figure 11- Txy diagram for Acetone-Water using UNIFAC at 0.2 bara

6. two successive flash drums

When two flash drums are used there is two alternative for the separation process.
Two flash drums can be located into the direct or indirect sequence. Naturally, when
the purpose of separation is the attainment of purer Acetone, two flash drums must
be located in direct sequence. Indirect sequence results in more recovered Acetone
with lower concentration.
To achieve purer Acetone, it is more justified to decrease the pressure of flash drums
as much as possible, but it may not be practicable or economical. Therefore, a lower
bound for the pressure of flash drums should be considered.
two cases are discussed in the following.
total pressure drop is set 2 bar. In other words, it is assumed that the summation of
feed’s pressure drop in two successive flash drums be equal to 2 bar. These two flash
drums can be located in two sequences and distribution of pressure drop can be
variant. For example, 1 bar pressure drop in the first drum and 1 bar in the second
drum or 1.5 bar in the first drum and 0.5 bar in second. For each mode of pressure
drop distribution, there is a degree of freedom in selecting the flash drum’s
temperature. The temperature of each drum affects the purity and recovery of
Acetone, so it should be selected so that recovery and purity be reasonable.

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As the temperature of the flash drum tends to dew point of inlet feed, the
concentration of Acetone in vapor phase increases while its flow rate decreases.
Thus, it is tried to choose a suitable temperature for every determined pressure.
Note: since we dictate the flash drum’s pressure and temperature, the temperature or
pressure of feed to each flash drum doesn’t effect on results of the simulation.
Although in practice the output vapor phase of flash drum should be cooled and then
be passed through throttling valve before entering into the second flash drum.
6.1 direct sequence

Table 4 shows the ASPENPLUS8.0 simulation results, it shows the effect of

pressure drop in each step of flash operations on the purity of recovered Acetone.
Purposely, the recovered Acetone mole flow is set to 1.285 kmole/hr to see the
effect of pressure. It is done by ASPENPLUS design specification tool.

Figure 12 – two flash drums in direct sequence

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Table 4 – comparison of pressure drop distribution between two successive drum in direct sequence

P1(bar) BUBT-DEWT T1 Acetone Y1 P2(bar) BUBT- T2 Acetone Y2

(°C) (°C) (Kmole/hr) DEWT-(°C) (Kmole/hr)
,v1 ,v2

2.8 91.33-110 97.13 1.595 0.697 1 57.6-70.45 60.4 1.285 0.826

2.5 87.53-106.73 93.42 1.595 0.703 1 57.54-70 60.3 1.285 0.828
2.3 80.8-104.3 90.74 1.595 0.708 1 57.5-69.67 60.1 1.285 0.83
2 80.3-100 86.34 1.595 0.716 1 57.4-69.1 60 1.285 0.832
1.8 77-97.3 83.06 1.595 0.723 1 57.36-68.56 59.9 1.285 0.833
1.6 73.3-94.1 79.5 1.595 0.73 1 57.3-68 59.7 1.285 0.835
1.4 69.3-90.5 75.5 1.595 0.738 1 57.23-67.42 59.6 1.285 0.837
1.2 64.7-86.5 71 1.595 0.747 1 57.1-66.7 59.4 1.285 0.84

Table 4 shows that as the pressure of first flash drum decreases, the purity of vapor
phase increases at constant recovery.
Since the pressure of flash drums is dictated by the user, if the valve is eliminated
the results won’t change. So for simplicity of simulation’s flow sheet the valves
hasn’t been shown.
6.2 indirect sequence

If two flash drum set into the indirect sequence, Acetone recovery will increase but
its purity decreases, in comparison with the direct sequence. Thus we cannot achieve
a lot of Acetone with high purity using flash separation. To obtain the pure Acetone
with reasonable flow rate it is necessary to use many flash drums and put them into
the direct and indirect sequence.

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Figure 13- two flash drums in indirect sequence

For two successive flash drums that were placed in indirect sequence, the simulation
was performed and it led to more recovery but didn’t effect on purity.

7. successive flash drum design to 99 mole% purity

As said to obtain a high degree of Acetone purity flash drums should be located in
direct sequence. To achieve 99% mole purity of Acetone the pressure of flash drums
should be decreased step by step to very low pressure.
In this case, the pressure of final flash drum is set to 0.1 bar and 13 flash drums is
used.
The temperature of the flash drums is determined so that the obtained values for
recovered flow of Acetone be reasonable furthermore the purity of Acetone is equal
to 99 mole %. Finally, Acetone recovery is very low and it shows that flash
vaporization isn’t an appropriate method for high purity.
For another case, the number of flash drums can be considered more than first case
and the pressure drop of the inlet flow to flash drums is less than first case. Providing
vacuum for the flash drum is cost demanding and sophisticated. Therefore, in order
to decrease the pressure of final stages, the number of steps were increased, while
pressure drop of each stage was reduced.
Temperature and pressure of the flash drums are presented in table 5.

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Table 5- pressure and temperature of flash drums to 99% Acetone

Stage Temperature Pressure Stage Temperature Pressure

1 99 3 8 0.9 53.14
2 87 2.5 9 0.7 46.08
3 82.56 2.2 10 0.5 37.21
4 77.54 1.9 11 0.3 24.79
5 71.92 1.6 12 0.2 15.62
6 65.2 1.3 13 0.1 1.42
7 59.37 1.3

Final overhead stream flow is 0.0024 kmole/hr. it’s so low and shows that flash
distillation isn’t an effective method to obtain 99 percent Acetone purity. Usually,
Flash vaporization process is used to bulk separation, not for complete separation of
mixture’s components.
As purity increases in final stages, the two- phase temperature range decreases, for
example in the final stage the bubble point and dew point are 1.373°C is 1.664°C,
respectively. so, another problem is controlling the temperature of the drums at low
pressure.

8. flow of acetone versus its purity with 2 to 7 successive flash drums

As it was mentioned, to reach a better separation an extensive pressure range is
requisite. In this section of simulation, the lower bound for pressure is set to
atmospheric pressure because we do not need to provide vacuum.
There are various modes for flash drum’s pressure in any case of the 2-7 flash drum.
Therefore, for being able to comparison the results, the overall pressure drop is
divided evenly between flash drums.
The purity and flow rate of acetone in vapor phase for each flash drum of any cases
was plotted. these plots show that the flow rate of recovered Acetone increases
significantly at temperatures near bubble point, as temperature decreases the slope
of curve decreases. On the other hand, the purity of Acetone decreases linearly with
pressure. An example of these plots is shown in Figure 14.

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1.8 0.9
mole flow(kmole/hr),Acetone 1.6 0.85
1.4

mole percent, Acetone

0.8
1.2
0.75
1
0.7
0.8
Acetone flow(kmole/hr) 0.65
0.6
purity
0.6
0.4

0.2 0.55

0 0.5
55 57 59 61 63 65 67 69 71
Temperature(°C)

Figure 14 – Acetone flow and purity versus flash drum’s temperature

Flash drum’s temperature is selected so that recovery and purity be reasonable. It is

suggested that the optimum temperature can be selected close to the cross point
where Acetone flow versus temperature diagram’s slope did not change
dramatically.
Table 5 shows the simulation results. These data are plotted in figure 15.

Table 6- flow rate and purity of Acetone for 2 to 7 successive flash drum

Number of flash drum Acetone flow Acetone purity(mole

rate(k mole /hr) %)
2 1.447 81.2
3 1.204 84.8
4 0.984 87
5 0.705 89
6 0.646 89.9
7 0.577 90.2

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1.6

1.4
Acetone flow rate, kmole/hr
1.2

1
2 flash drum
0.8 3 flash drum

0.6 4 flash drum

5 flash drum
0.4
6 flash drum
0.2
7 flash drum
0
80 82 84 86 88 90 92
Acetone purity(mole%)

Figure 15- flow rate versus it's purity for various number of flash drum

It can be realized from figure 15 that, as the number of flash drums increase the
purity of recovered Acetone in final overhead stream increases while its flow rate
decreases.
As the number of drums increases, the magnitude of change in flow rate and purity
of Acetone decreases, so it isn’t recommended to use more than 5 flash drum.
It’s obvious that with more flash drums, higher flow of Acetone with a certain purity
can be recovered. Also for a constant flow rate of recovered Acetone, the purer
Acetone can be obtained with more flash drums.
An important subject that should be noted is that when the purity increases in final
stages the dew temperature approaches to bubble temperature and subsequently
bubble range decreases. Table 6 shows temperature and pressure of successive flash
drums when 7 drums are used.
As can be seen in this table, bubble range decreases to 1 degree- centigrade when
the pressure of final stage set to 1 bar and the concentration of Acetone in the feed
is equal to 88.7- mole percent.

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Table 7- two phase range of any flash drums - for 7 successive FDs case

stage pressure(bar) Acetone- mole% BUBBT-DEWT(°C)

1 2.7143 50 90.28-109.17
2 2.4286 69.8 84.47-93.03
3 2.1428 76.5 80.126-84.50
4 1.8571 81.2 75.2-77.58
5 1.5714 84.2 69.78-71.38
6 1.2857 86.8 63.53-64.68
7 1 88.7 56.1-57.11

According to these results, in the practical situation, there is an impressive difficulty

to control the temperature of flash drum.
Note: In all of the simulations that have been done above pressure and temperature
of flash drums have been dictated, and the flash calculation was T-P flash. An energy
balance around a flash drum gives its heat load. Thus, to set the temperature of the
drum on a certain value, amount of heat is required.
We can also design the flash drum such that is insulated and hasn’t heat load, in this
way the flash is P-H flash and temperature cannot be controlled and the flash drum’s
pressure dictate its temperature.

9. Recycling vapor to decrease heat load of heater

Vapor products of flash drums can be used as a thermal source to heat the feed before
entering the first flash drum. it’s also possible to use them in another situation as a
heat source. In this way, the need for a cool stream to condensate the vapors id
eliminated and the heat load of heater decreases.
The liquid product of first flash drum is saturated, so when its pressure decreases
through throttling valve it becomes two- phase flow and doesn’t need heat, usually.
It should be noted that the temperature of all vapors product is below the initial feed
to the first flash drum because all of the vapors are saturated at the pressure below
the feed pressure. There for the heater should be used and vapors just preheat the
feed.

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10. Evaluating Lam’s pretention for purification using microscale

distillation
In this article, a silicon-based microscale distillation chip was used to separate a
mixture contain 19- mole percent of Acetone-water. Micropillars were incorporated
in the micro-channel to direct liquid flow from the cooled to the heated end by
capillarity. A feed of a 19 mol% Acetone-Water mixture was separated to 95+ mol%
acetone in the distillate and 11 mol% in the bottom stream.
The Acetone’s density is equal to 791 kg/m3 and density of water is approximately
equal to 1000 kg/m3. In table 1 of this article (see figure 16) the flow rates are
represented in volumetric flow rate and for each case that are reported in this table.
According to this table, there is a volume balance between feed and products. The
mass balance must be correct for the system, because of different densities of the
streams, these represented data may be low accurate.
It is concluded that as reflux ratio decreases the purity of Acetone in distillate
increases and also Acetone mole fraction decreases in bottom product. Furthermore,
it’s mentioned that these observations are also commonly observed in conventional
distillation. in common distillation when the distillation rate increases the reflux ratio
decreases, the mole fraction of Acetone in distillate decreases and also mole fraction
of water in bottom decreases. It seems incorrect that when the distillation rate
increases the bottom product becomes purer!
To be sure that this pretention is incorrect a simulation was performed using
ASPENPLUS software, it was observed that as the distillate rate increases the mole
fraction of Acetone in bottom product increases, contrary to what is claimed.
This method is appropriate to purify samples in small volume but it won’t have wide
application in industrial processes.

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Figure 16- Table 1 of Lam etal [6] article

11. Using refrigerant for cooling the vapor to next flash drum
As was mentioned in the previous simulations that were T- P flash, since the
temperature and pressure of flash drums were dictated so using refrigerant to cool
the feed streams and throttling valve to decrease the pressure of the streams won’t
have an effect on the simulation’s results. So the refrigerant and the valves have not
been used in simulations.
For cases that heat load of flash drums is equal to zero, temperature of inlet feed
affects the results, so it’s necessary to use an heat exchanger with a refrigerant as a
cooling stream to adjust the feed’s temperature.

12. Design a distillation column to separate 50-50 mixture

As was said in section 7, flash distillation isn’t an appropriate method to obtain 99%
purity of Acetone. An alternative for flash distillation is distillation column.
the simulation was performed and a vacuum distillation column at 0.5 bar with 25
theatrical stage and 1.5 reflux ratio was designed. Mass fraction of Acetone is 0.995
in distillate stream and Acetone flow rate is equal to 100.15 kg/hr.

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Figure 17- schematic of distillation column for purify 50-50 mixture

References:
[1] Treybal, Robert E. "Mass-transfer operations." New York (1980).
[2] Dodge, Barnett Fred. Chemical engineering thermodynamics. McGraw-Hill
Book Company, inc., 1944.
[3] Carlson, Eric C. "Don't gamble with physical properties for
simulations." Chemical Engineering Progress 92.10 (1996): 35-46.
[4] Perry’s Chemical Engineers’ Handbook, Mc Graw Hill, 2008, table 13-1
[5] Himmelblau, David Mautner, and James B. Riggs. Basic principles and
calculations in chemical engineering. FT Press, 2012.
[6] Lam, K. F., E. Sorensen, and A. Gavriilidis. "On-chip microscale distillation for
acetone-water separation." 14th International Conference on Miniaturized
Systems for Chemistry and Life Sciences 2010, MicroTAS 2010. Vol. 1. 2010.

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