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Bifurcation analysis in heterogeneous azeotropic distillation

1989; Wiley; Volume: 35; Issue: 9 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1002/aic.690350906

1547-5905

Soemantri Widagdo, Warren D. Seider, Donald H. Sebastian,

Crystallization and Solubility Studies

Abstract Parameterization with respect to the aqueous reflux ratio has been carried out for the steady‐state analysis of a tower to dehydrate secbutanol using disecondary butyl ether as the entrainer. With an equilibrium‐stage model, singularities are observed as the second liquid phase is introduced on the trays and regions of steady‐state multiplicity are demonstrated. Furthermore, a critical aqueous reflux ratio, in the vicinity of which two liquid phases are introduced on most of the trays, varies only slightly with the number of trays in the tower. The model predicts that the product purities and recoveries remain high using one‐third of the trays in the industrial SBA‐II tower. Bifurcation analysis for a single stage does not explain these observations, and the effect of recycle is suspected.