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Bifurcation analysis in heterogeneous azeotropic distillation
Author(s) -
Widagdo Soemantri,
Seider Warren D.,
Sebastian Donald H.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
aiche journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.958
H-Index - 167
eISSN - 1547-5905
pISSN - 0001-1541
DOI - 10.1002/aic.690350906
Subject(s) - bifurcation , distillation , aqueous solution , fractional distillation , chemistry , thermodynamics , reflux , tower , steady state (chemistry) , chromatography , mathematics , mechanics , materials science , engineering , physics , organic chemistry , medicine , civil engineering , disease , quantum mechanics , nonlinear system , pathology
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.