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Importance of pressure drop in divided wall distillation column
Author(s) -
Sangal Vikas Kumar,
Bichalu L.,
Kumar Vineet,
Mishra Indra Mani
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
asia‐pacific journal of chemical engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.348
H-Index - 35
eISSN - 1932-2143
pISSN - 1932-2135
DOI - 10.1002/apj.1633
Subject(s) - reboiler , pressure drop , tray , condenser (optics) , distillation , fractional distillation , mechanics , volumetric flow rate , vapor pressure , overall pressure ratio , chemistry , column (typography) , materials science , thermodynamics , environmental science , chromatography , mechanical engineering , engineering , physics , optics , light source , connection (principal bundle) , gas compressor , organic chemistry
Pressure drop calculations are extensively used for finding tray spacing at the time of designing a column, but these are rarely performed for the simulation purposes as a minor change in pressure (from condenser to reboiler) has insignificant effect on the vapour–liquid equilibrium. However, pressure difference plays an important role in deciding vapour and liquid flow rate across a tray (or trays), particularly in case of interconnected or divided wall distillation column (DWC). In case of a DWC, the feasible vapour split ratio below the divided wall section is naturally adjusted in such a way that the pressure drops in the two parallel branches of the DWC are equal. In the present work, simulation of a DWC using the MultiFrac model of aspen plus TM (Aspen Technology, Inc., Burlington, MA, USA) was carried out to study the feasible vapour split as a function of reflux ratio and liquid split ratio. The results are interesting in that they show a little effect of liquid split ratio on the feasible vapour split ratio and significantly different pressure profiles in two sides of the DWC. It was also found that the variation in vapour flow rate leads to a large variation in the concentration profile. These results indicate that the pressure drop may be one of the key parameters that should be considered for the optimal design and control of a DWC. © 2012 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.