Azeotrope example

The separation of benzene (1) and cyclohexane (2) by distillation is complicated due to the formation of an azeotrope (Example 2.5). Vapor-liquid equilibrium data for this binary are required for the design of a workable separation process. As a first step, find the azeotropic composition and temperature at 100 kPa pressure. Use the van Laar equation for activity coefficients with parameters A12 = 0.147, A21 = 0.165. The computations can be made with assumptions consistent with low pressure conditions. The vapor pressures of benzene and cyclohexane can be represented by the Antoine Equation 2.19 with the following constants Al = 13.88, Bl = 2788.5, Q = -52.36, A2 = 13.74, = 2766.6,... 

We next discuss the examples of application of semisharp extractive distillation (Petlyuk Danilov, 2000b) for separation of ternary mixture with two binary azeotropes, examples of application of two levels of pressure, and choice of entrainers that do not form heteroazeotrpes. 

Convergence is usually accomplished in 2 to 4 iterations. For example, an average of 2.6 iterations was required for 9 bubble-point-temperature calculations over the complete composition range for the azeotropic system ehtanol-ethyl acetate. Standard initial estimates were used. Figure 1 shows results for the incipient vapor-phase compositions together with the experimental data of Murti and van Winkle (1958). For this case, calculated bubble-point temperatures were never more than 0.4 K from observed values. 

Examples of azeotropic mixtures of minimum boiling point are collected in Table I, 4, A. 

Examples of azeotropic mixtures of maximum boiling point are tabulated below these are not as numerous as those of minimum boiling point. 

Other mixtures which may be employed are carbon tetrachloride (b.p. 77°) and toluene (b.p. 110-111°) chloroform (b.p. 61°) and toluene methyl alcohol (b.p. 65°) and water (b.p. 100°). The last example is of interest because almost pure methyl alcohol may be isolated no constant boiling point mixture (or azeotropic mixture) is formed (compare ethyl alcohol and water, Sections 1,4 and 1,5). Attention is directed to the poisonous character of methyl alcohol the vapour should therefore not be inhaled. 

The formation of ethyl isopropylidene cyanoacetate is an example of the Knoevenagel reaction (see Discussion before Section IV,123). With higher ketones a mixture of ammonium acetate and acetic acid is an effective catalyst the water formed is removed by azeotropic distillation with benzene. The essential step in the reaction with aqueous potassium cyanide is the addition of the cyanide ion to the p-end of the ap-double bond ... 

Diols that bear two hydroxyl groups m a 1 2 or 1 3 relationship to each other yield cyclic acetals on reaction with either aldehydes or ketones The five membered cyclic acetals derived from ethylene glycol (12 ethanediol) are the most commonly encoun tered examples Often the position of equilibrium is made more favorable by removing the water formed m the reaction by azeotropic distillation with benzene or toluene... 

Metal chlorides which are not readily salted out by hydrochloric acid can require high concentrations of HCl for precipitation. This property is used to recover hydrogen chloride from azeotropic mixtures. A typical example is the calcium chloride [10043-52-4] addition used to breakup the HCl—H2O azeotrope and permit recovery of HCl gas by distillation (see Distillation, azeotropic and extractive). 

NMP are examples of suitable solvents for PES and PPSF polymerizations. Chlorobenzene or toluene are used as cosolvents at low concentrations. These cosolvents form an azeotrope with water as they distill out of the reaction mixture, thereby keeping the polymerization medium dehydrated. Potassium carbonate is a suitable choice for base. The synthesis of PES and PPSE differ from the PSE case in that the reaction is carried out in a single-step process. In other words, the formation of the dipotassium salt of the bisphenol is not completed in a separate first step. Equations 2 and 3 represent polymerizations based on the dipotassium salts of bisphenol S and biphenol to make PES and PPSE, respectively. 

In the Type II case, the copolymerization tends toward an alternating arrangement of monomer units. Curve II of Figure 1 shows an example of an alternating copolymer that has an azeotropic copolymer composition, ie, a copolymer composition equal to the monomer feed at a single monomer feed composition. This case is analogous to a constant Foiling mixture ia vapor—Hquid equihbria.T) III... 

In the example, the minimum reflux ratio and minimum number of theoretical plates decreased 14- to 33-fold, respectively, when the relative volatiHty increased from 1.1 to 4. Other distillation systems would have different specific reflux ratios and numbers of theoretical plates, but the trend would be the same. As the relative volatiHty approaches unity, distillation separations rapidly become more cosdy in terms of both capital and operating costs. The relative volatiHty can sometimes be improved through the use of an extraneous solvent that modifies the VLE. Binary azeotropic systems are impossible to separate into pure components in a single column, but the azeotrope can often be broken by an extraneous entrainer (see Distillation, A7EOTROPTC AND EXTRACTIVE). 

The first step in the synthesis of a homogeneous azeotropic distillation sequence is to determine the separation objective. Eor example, sometimes it is deskable to recover all of the constituents in the mixture as pure components, other times it is sufficient to recover only some of the pure components as products. In other cases an azeotrope may be the desked product. Not every objective is attainable and those that are feasible may requke different distillation sequences. 

Esters of medium volatility are capable of removing the water formed by distillation. Examples are propyl, butyl, and amyl formates, ethyl, propyl, butyl, and amyl acetates, and the methyl and ethyl esters of propionic, butyric, and valeric acids. In some cases, ternary azeotropic mixtures of alcohol, ester, and water are formed. This group is capable of further subdivision with ethyl acetate, all of the ester is removed as a vapor mixture with alcohol and part of the water, while the balance of the water accumulates in the system. With butyl acetate, on the other hand, all of the water formed is removed overhead with part of the ester and alcohol, and the balance of the ester accumulates as a high boiler in the system. 

The two degrees of freedom for this system may be satisfied by setting T and P, or T and t/j, or P and a-j, or Xi and i/i, and so on, at fixed values. Thus, for equilibrium at a particular T and P, this state (if possible at all) exists only at one liquid and one vapor composition. Once the two degrees of freedom are used up, no further specification is possible that would restrict the phase-rule variables. For example, one cannot m addition require that the system form an azeotrope (assuming this possible), for this requires Xi = i/i, an equation not taken into account in the derivation of the phase rule. Thus, the requirement that the system form an azeotrope imposes a special constraint and reduces the number of degrees of freedom to one. 

An example of heterogeneous-azeotrope formation is shown in Fig. 13-13 for the water-normal butanol system at 101.3 kPa. At liquid compositions between 0 and 3 mole percent butanol and between 40 and 100 mole percent butanol, the liquid phase is homogeneous. Phase sphtting into two separate liquid phases (one with 3 mole percent butanol and the other with 40 mole percent butanol) occurs for any overall hquid composition between 3 and 40 mole percent butanol. A miuimum-boihug heterogeneous azeotrope occurs at 92°C (198°F) when the vapor composition and the over l composition of the two liquid phases are 75 mole percent butanol. 

Three types of binary equilibrium cui ves are shown in Fig. 13-27. The y-x diagram is almost always plotted for the component that is the more volatile (denoted by the subscript 1) in the region where distillation is to take place. Cui ve A shows the most usual case, in which component 1 remains more volatile over the entire composition range. Cui ve B is typical of many systems (ethanol-water, for example) in which the component that is more volatile at lowvalues of X becomes less volatile than the other component at high values of X. The vapor and liquid compositions are identical for the homogeneous azeotrope where cui ve B crosses the 45° diagonal. A heterogeneous azeotrope is formed with two liquid phases by cui ve C,... 

Schematic DRD shown in Fig. 13-59 are particularly useful in determining the imphcations of possibly unknown ternary saddle azeotropes by postulating position 7 at interior positions in the temperature profile. It should also be noted that some combinations of binary azeotropes require the existence of a ternaiy saddle azeotrope. As an example, consider the system acetone (56.4°C), chloroform (61.2°C), and methanol (64.7°C). Methanol forms minimum-boiling azeotropes with both acetone (54.6°C) and chloroform (53.5°C), and acetone-chloroform forms a maximum-boiling azeotrope (64.5°C). Experimentally there are no data for maximum or minimum-boiling ternaiy azeotropes. The temperature profile for this system is 461325, which from Table 13-16 is consistent with DRD 040 and DRD 042. However, Table 13-16 also indicates that the pure component and binary azeotrope data are consistent with three temperature profiles involving a ternaiy saddle azeotrope, namely 4671325, 4617325, and 4613725. All three of these temperature profiles correspond to DRD 107. Experimental residue cui ve trajectories for the acetone-...

The first three of these are solely X T.E-based approaches, involving a series of simple distillation operations and recycles. The final approach also relies on distillation (X T.E), but also exploits another physical phenomena, liqnid-hqnid phase formation (phase splitting), to assist in entrainer recovery. This approach is the most powerful and versatile. Examples of industrial uses of azeotropic distillation grouped by method are given in Table 13-18. 

The choice of the appropriate azeotropic distillation method and the resulting flowsheet for the separation of a particular mixture are strong functions of the separation objective. For example, it may be desirable to recover all constituents of the original feed mixture as pure components, or only some as pure components and some as azeotropic mixtures suitable for recycle. Not every objective may be obtainable by azeotropic distillation for a given mixture and portfolio of candidate entrainers. 

As mentioned previously, ternaiy mixtures can be represented by 125 different residue curve maps or distillation region diagrams. However, feasible distillation sequences using the first approach can be developed for breaking homogeneous binaiy azeotropes by the addition of a third component only for those more restricted systems that do not have a distillation boundaiy connected to the azeotrope and for which one of the original components is a node. For example, from... 

The simplest case of combining T E and LLE is the separation of a binaiy heterogeneous azeotropic mixture. One example is the dehydration of 1-butanol, a self-entraining system, in which butanol (117.7°C) and water form a minimum-boiling heterogeneous azeotrope (93.0°C). As shown in Fig. 13-69, the fresh feed may be added... 

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