Multicomponent separation between two regions in a closed vessel

2 Multicomponent separation between two regions in a closed vessel 

The case of multicomponent separation between two immiscible phases requires further consideration if each phase is primarily made up of one species and the remaining components are present in these phases in small amounts. Consider a three-component system consisting of, say, water, benzene and picric acid, the latter being present in very small amounts. Water and benzene 

F are 1.2.2. Multicomponent separation between two immiscible liquid phases. 

In fact, one can go a step further by identifying the benzene extract phase as region 1 and the water raffinate phase as region 2 and working only with the concentrations of the two acids in each region. We then, in effect, have a binary system of benzoic acid and picric acid between two regions, 1 (benzene layer), and 2 (water layer), and one could proceed with the description in the manner of Section 1.1. Thus the description of a four-component separation system may he reduced to that of a two-component separation system provided each of the immiscihle phases is made up of essentially one species 

A variety of conditions are possible with multicomponent systems in general. When one needs to separate partldes of one size from particles of all other sizes present in a suspension, or when particles of different sizes are to be separated from one another as well as from the medium of suspension, a multi-component separation problem exists. If a macromol-ecular substanire or solution Is to be fractionated, the nature of the description of the separation problem Is similar. Such problems are handled most conveniently by dealing with pseudo binary systems. We will come across such cases as we proceed further in this book, although binary systems will be encountered much more frequently. 

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