Distillation software

MicroMENTOR is an educational package for solving distillation problems and includes MCCABE, PONCH, and BATCH for the MaCabe-Thiele, Ponchon-Savarit, and Batch binary distillations (11). The commercially available distillation software packages have been surveyed (15). Por reactive distillation, ASPEN software (16) is weU-known and widely adopted. 

A wide array of general-purpose distillation packages are available to the engineer. Some of the distillation software is stand-alone, whereas other packages are a part of a general-purpose flow sheet or process-simulation system. Because distillation is so universal, all process simulators have one or more distillation program modules for this unit operation. Often the nature of the distillation modules determines the suitabiUty of or the preference for the use of a specific simulator for an appHcation. 

Numerous computer software programs are available today to streamline design calculations. Of course, such software can be structured only after very careful analysis is made of the chemical dynamics of a given application. Calculations are particularly complex and difficult in the instances of azeotropic and reactive distillation. Software programs are described in some detail in the Kumana. Morris, and VenkuUiramkan references listed. 

The conditions listed below are somewhat ordered from most important to least important, Chan et al, (5) provide a detailed overview in selecting distillation software. 

This is a more difficult equation to solve than that for the solubility of Pb(I03)2 in distilled water, and its solution is not immediately obvious. A rigorous solution to equation 6.34 can be found using available computer software packages and spreadsheets. 

Kumana, J. D., Run Batch Distillation Processes with Spreadsheet Software, Chem. Eng. Prog. Dec. (1990), p. 53. 

Distillation is a well-known process and scale-up methods have been well established. Many computer programs for the simulation of continuous distillation columns that are operated at steady state are available. In fine chemicals manufacture, this concerns separations of products in the production of bulk fine chemicals and for solvent recovery/purification. In the past decade, software for modelling of distillation columns operated at non-steady state, including batch distillation, has been developed. In the fine chemicals business, usually batch distillation is applied. 

There are other ways to convert a single piece of SAS output to PDF. You can use a free script found on the Internet, such as ascii2pdf, or purchase a PDF file converter from a third-party software vendor. If you have Acrobat Distiller with Acrobat Version 5, you can use the PDF distiller macros in Microsoft Office to print a single file from Microsoft Word to PDF. 

The principle cost of creating an ES is not the hardware on which the system runs or the software that is used to create it, but the cost of employing a human expert to create the system. Not only are human experts expensive creatures, but they also may be understandably reluctant to spend time developing a computerized copy of themselves, knowing that, the more perfectly they manage to distil their expertise into a computer system, the greater the chance that they will make themselves redundant. 

Divergent exo-receptors, 26 774 DiverseSolutions software, 6 17 Diversity searches, 6 14-18 DiversitySolutions software, 6 15, 17 Dividing flow manifolds, 23 272 Dividing wall distillation columns, 20 750-751... 

Fractional distillation of crude pine oil, 24 510 of crude sulfate turpentine, 24 476 Fractional extraction, 10 745, 759-760 Fractional factorial designs, 8 396 amount of coverage in experimental design texts compared, 8 395t commercial experimental design software compared, 8 398t Fractional velocity plots, 10 319-321 Fractionating towers, in plant layout,... 

Within the past few years the advances made in hydrocarbon thermodynamics combined wtih increased sophistication in computer software and hardware have made it quite simple for engineers to predict phase equilibria or simulate complex fractionation towers to a high degree of accuracy through software systems such as SSI s PROCESS, Monsanto s FLOWTRAN, and Chemshare s DISTILL among others. This has not beem the case for electrolyte systems. 

Figure 1 lists the major industrial processes that use thermodynamic data and the kind of data that are relevant. The design and use of distillation columns are the largest consumers of thermodynamic data. The feed stream to most industrial columns contains at least several components. The predication of the operating characteristics of such columns requires complicated calculations, and much computer software has been written... 

Figure 2.8—Simulated distillation of lubricating oil (Polvwax). Using a column that can operate at high temperatures, a correlation is made between retention times and boiling temperatures for a series of oligomers. The sample to be distilled is then run under the same chromatographic conditions. Software using the chromatogram reproduces a distribution curve identical to that which would be obtained from the mixture if it were distilled, a much longer process (document SGE 712-0546 and -0547).

The design of RD is currently based on expensive and time-consuming sequences of laboratory and pilot-plant experiments, since there is no commercially available software adequately describing all relevant features of reactions (catalyst, kinetics, holdup) and distillation (VLE, thermodynamics, plate and packing behavior) as well as their combination in RD. There is also a need to improve catalysts and column internals for RD applications (1,51). Figures 8 and 9 show some examples of catalytic internals, applied for reactive distillation. 

Several authors have already developed methodologies for the simulation of hybrid distillation-pervaporation processes. Short-cut methods were developed by Moganti et al. [95] and Stephan et al. [96]. Due to simplifications such as the use of constant relative volatility, one-phase sidestreams, perfect mixing on feed and permeate sides of the membrane, and simple membrane transport models, the results obtained should only be considered qualitative in nature. Verhoef et al. [97] used a quantitative approach for simulation, based on simplified calculations in Aspen Plus/Excel VBA. Hommerich and Rautenbach [98] describe the design and optimization of combined pervaporation-distillation processes, incorporating a user-written routine for pervaporation into the Aspen Plus simulation software. This is an improvement over most approaches with respect to accuracy, although the membrane model itself is still quite... 

We again consider the distillation unit introduced in Example 1, updated with temperature information for each of the streams, including some that were previously considered to be internal to the system box. The temperatures have been estimated using a physical property estimation system. There are a number of such computer-based tools and most simulation software systems will include property estimation methods. Figure 3 shows these temperatures as well as the results obtained in the mass balance step above. As more streams are included in this diagram, we have new unknowns related to flow rates. Specifically, we now have the vapour stream, V, from the top of the column to the condenser and the liquid reflux stream, L, from the condenser back into the column. The relationship between the liquid reflux stream back into the column and the actual distillate product stream (D) is given by the reflux ratio ... 

As for distillation, the thermodynamic data form the basis for the design for absorption and the absorption equilibrium data can be found either tabulated, from correlations or from commercial software. Again, good data is vital to ensure good design. 

There are many commercial project management methodologies that cover these aspects of project management in different ways, and numerous texts on the topic and software, such as MS Project and its add-ons [D-13, D-14], However, it is not the intention of this book to espouse the benefits of any one of these but rather to distil out the essential best practices from a range of such methodologies. 

Christiansen et al. (54) applied the Naphtali-Sandholm method to natural gas mixtures. They replaced the equilibrium relationships and component vapor rates with the bubble-point equation and total liquid rate to get practically half the number of functions and variables [to iV(C + 2)]. By exclusively using the Soave-Redlich-Kwong equation of state, they were able to use analytical derivatives of revalues and enthalpies with respect to composition and temperature. To improve stability in the calculation, they limited the changes in the independent variables between trials to where each change did not exceed a preset maximum. There is a Naphtali-Sandholm method in the FraChem program of OLI Systems, Florham Park, New Jersey CHEMCAD of Coade Inc, of Houston, Texas PRO/II of Simulation Sciences of Fullerton, California and Distil-R of TECS Software, Houston, Texas. Variations of the Naphtali-Sandholm method are used in other methods such as the homotopy methods (Sec. 4,2.12) and the nonequilibrium methods (Sec. 4.2.13). 

Professional Distillation and PD + Plus, Deerhaven Technical Software, Bur-lington, Mass., 1987. 

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