Extraction plate efficiency

In extractive distillation, the agent (sometimes termed solvent) is significantly less volatile than the regular feed components. The agent will be added near the top of the column. The agent behaves as a heavier-than heavy key component. It is also conveniently separated from the product streams. Because the agent usually must be added in fairly substantial amounts, this means that column diameters and heat loads are increased, while plate efficiencies arc lowered. 

Eor the projection of an extraction unit, the practical theoretical plate number is determined by dividing the theoretical plate number by the plate efficiency value ... 

McCartney, R. F., Plate Efficiencies in the Separation of C4 Hydrocarbons by Extractive Distillation, M.S. Thesis, University of Delware, Delaware, 1948. 

When the cells are too dilute, they can no longer communicate with each other and the plating efficiency dramatically drops. Therefore, a second conditioning factor, not present in our extracts, must exist so that we did not obtain single-cell division. 

Up to now only the number of theoretical stages was determined for dimensioning an extraction. The connection between the theoretical stage model and real separation column was established through the plate efficiency for a plate column or the height of a theoretical plate FIETP for a packed column. Hereby, the actual mass-transfer pro-... 

This fraction can be measured along the curved saturated extract line. It should be stressed that the resulting number of stages, 2.2, is only approximate. The fractional number of stages is useful when the actual stages are not equilibrium stages. Thus, if a sieve-plate column with an overall plate efficiency of 25% were being used, the actual number of plates required would be... 

Column diameter in. Amplitude, in. Plate spacing, in. Agitator speed, strokes/min Extractant Dispersed phase Minimum HETS Throughput, gal hr- ft-2 Volumetric efficiencies V/HETS,h" ... 

It is seen that by a simple curve fitting process, the individual contributions to the total variance per unit length can be easily extracted. It is also seen that there is minimum value for the HETP at a particular velocity. Thus, the maximum number of theoretical plates obtainable from a given column (the maximum efficiency) can only be obtained by operating at the optimum mobile phase velocity. 

Fig. 3. Comparison of transfection efficiencies obtained using PolyFect Reagent, a dendrimer-based transfection reagent, and a calcium phosphate-mediated procedure. COS-7 and HeLa cells were transfected in srx-weU plates with a /3-galactosidase expression plasmid using the appropriate protocol. For the calcium phosphate-mediated transfection, 6 pg of plasmid DNA was used and the medium was changed after 5 h incubation. Transfections were performed in triplicate, and transfection efficiency was measured by monitoring the /3-galactosidase activity of extracts obtained from the transfected cells. The amoimt of /3-galactosidase activity in the extracts correlates with the transfection efficiency. Cells were harvested 48 h post-trans-fection...

Extractors with mechanical agitation, such as mixer-settlers, Kuhni columns, York-Schiebel columns, etc., should be avoided as much as possible. Up to seven theoretical stages packed extraction columns can be conveniently adopted. Sieve-plate extractors can be used up to 20 stages. When a very efficient extraction has to be carried out with expensive solutes, and for reasons of material stability and requirements of low expensive product inventory, we may have to use centrifugal extractors or hollow-fibre extractors. 

The actual stage can be a mixing vessel, as in a mixer-settler used for solvent extraction applications, or a plate of a distillation or gas absorption column. In order to allow for non-ideal conditions in which the compositions of the two exit streams do not achieve full equilibrium, an actual number of stages can be related to the number of theoretical stages, via the use of a stage-efficiency factor. 

Tsunogai and Nozaki [6] analysed Pacific Oceans surface water by consecutive coprecipitations of polonium with calcium carbonate and bismuth oxychloride after addition of lead and bismuth carriers to acidified seawater samples. After concentration, polonium was spontaneously deposited onto silver planchets. Quantitative recoveries of polonium were assumed at the extraction steps and plating step. Shannon et al. [7], who analysed surface water from the Atlantic Ocean near the tip of South Africa, extracted polonium from acidified samples as the ammonium pyrrolidine dithiocarbamate complex into methyl isobutyl ketone. They also autoplated polonium onto silver counting disks. An average efficiency of 92% was assigned to their procedure after calibration with 210Po-210Pb tracer experiments. 

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