SEPARATIONOFAZEOTROPICMIXTURESBYMULTIVESSELBATCH.docVIP

Separation of Ternary Heteroazeotropic Mixtures in a Batch Multivessel Distillation-Decanter Hybrid Stathis Skouras and Sigurd Skogestad Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway Batch time (energy) requirements are provided for the separation of ternary zeotropic and azeotropic mixtures in three closed batch column configurations. Results are provided for two multivessel column modifications (with and without vapor bypass) and a conventional batch column operated under the cyclic policy. It is shown that the multivessel column performs always better than the conventional column and the time savings vary from 24% up to 54 %. Moreover, it was found that by eliminating the vapor bypass in the multivessel, additional time savings of 26% can be achieved for a zeotropic mixture. Finally, the multivessel with the vapor bypass should be used for the separation of the azeotropic mixtures. INTRODUCTION The multivessel batch column is a combination of a batch rectifier and a batch stripper. The column has both a rectifying and a stripping section and therefore it is possible to obtain a light and a heavy fraction simultaneously from the top and the bottom of the column, while an intermediate fraction may also be recovered in the middle vessel. Two modifications of the MVC are presented here. First, the vapor bypass modification where the vapor from the stripping section bypasses the middle vessel and enters the rectifying section (Fig. 1a) and second, another modification where both liquid and vapor streams enter the middle vessel (Fig 1b). We refer to the first modification as conventional multivessel and to the second one as multivessel column without vapor bypass. Figure 1: a) Multivessel batch column with vapor bypass b) Multivessel batch column without vapor bypass c) Cyclic 2-vessel batch column The third column configuration studied in this work is a conventional batch column operated under the cycl