Thermodynamic limit, boiling

Other Technologies. As important as dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene is in the production of styrene, it suffers from two theoretical disadvantages it is endothermic and is limited by thermodynamic equiHbrium. The endothermicity requites heat input at high temperature, which is difficult. The thermodynamic limitation necessitates the separation of the unreacted ethylbenzene from styrene, which are close-boiling compounds. The obvious solution is to effect the reaction oxidatively ... 

Reactive distillation is used with thermodynamically limited reversible liquid-phase reactions and is particularly attractive when one of the products has a tower boiling point than the reactants. For reversible reactions of this type. 

FIG. 1 At point A, bubbles begin to appear. Two pathways to point A are shown. BA represents raising the temperature at constant pressure, whereas CA causes boiling by reducing the pressure at a constant temperature. The portions of the line BA above the full curve, or of CA to the left of the full curve until they reach A are sometimes referred to as the widths of the metastable zone. Ostwald s metastable limit is the kinetic limit of stability, and is shown here as the dotted line. The spinodal represent the thermodynamic limit of instability. 

Other Separation Techniques. Under some circumstances, distillation is not the best method of separation. Among these instances are the following when relative volatiHty is <1.05 when <1% of a stream is removed, as in gas drying (adsorption or absorption) or C2H2 removal (reaction or absorption) when thermodynamic efficiency of distillation is <5% and when a high boiling point pushes thermal stabiHty limits. A variety of other... 

In spite of the wealth of information available on the preparative and structural aspects of the lanthanide chlorides (1-3), experimental thermodynamic, and, in particular, high-temperature vaporization data are singularly lacking. The comprehensive estimates of the enthalpies of fusion, vaporization, heat capacities and other thermal functions for the lanthanide chlorides by Brewer et ah (4, 5) appear internally consistent, but the relatively few experimental measurements (6-/2) do not permit confirmation of the estimates due to the narrow temperature ranges of study. Additionally, the absence of accurate molecular data for the gaseous species has hampered third-law treatment of the limited experimental vapor pressure data available. The one reported study (12) of the vaporization of EuC12 effected by a boiling-point method lacks accuracy for these reasons. 

The objective is to reduce volatiles to below 50-100-ppm levels. In most devolatilization equipment, the solution is exposed to a vacuum, the level of which sets the thermodynamic upper limit of separation. The vacuum is generally high enough to superheat the solution and foam it. Foaming is essentially a boiling mechanism. In this case, the mechanism involves a series of steps creation of a vapor phase by nucleation, bubble growth, bubble coalescence and breakup, and bubble rupture. At a very low concentration of volatiles, foaming may not take place, and removal of volatiles would proceed via a diffusion-controlled mechanism to a liquid-vapor macroscopic interface enhanced by laminar flow-induced repeated surface renewals, which can also cause entrapment of vapor bubbles. 

Process Applications The prodnction of esters from alcohols and carboxylic acids illustrates many of the principles of reactive distillation as applied to equilibrium-limited systems. The true thermodynamic equilibrium constants for esterification reactions are nsnally in the range of 5 to 20. Large excesses of alcohols mnst be nsed to obtain acceptable yields, resulting in large recycle flow rates. In a reactive distillation scheme, the reaction is driven to completion by removal of the water of esterification. The method used for removal of the water depends on the boiling points, compositions, and liquid-phase behavior of any azeotropes formed between the prodncts and reactants and largely dictates the structure of the reactive distillation flow sheet. 

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