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Lecture 4: Flash Distillation: Che 545: Mass Transfer Operations I

Flash distillation is a single stage equilibrium operation that partially vaporizes a feed to enrich components in the effluent phases. For isothermal flash, the system pressure and temperature are specified and the Rachford-Rice equation is solved for the vapor fraction. For adiabatic flash, no external heat is added and a trial and error approach is used to solve the Rachford-Rice equation by assuming a temperature and refining the guess until the calculated and energy balance vapor fractions agree.

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14 views

Lecture 4: Flash Distillation: Che 545: Mass Transfer Operations I

Flash distillation is a single stage equilibrium operation that partially vaporizes a feed to enrich components in the effluent phases. For isothermal flash, the system pressure and temperature are specified and the Rachford-Rice equation is solved for the vapor fraction. For adiabatic flash, no external heat is added and a trial and error approach is used to solve the Rachford-Rice equation by assuming a temperature and refining the guess until the calculated and energy balance vapor fractions agree.

Uploaded by

Dante Gonzalez Anota
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Fall 2008 ChE 545: Mass Transfer Operations I

Lecture 4: Flash Distillation


Flash distillation is a single stage equilibrium operation in which feed is partially vaporized to obtain enrichment of components in effluent phases. The effluent phases (P) are in equilibrium with each other. The degree of freedom (F) in this system is C + 5, C being the number of components: o The number of variables is CP + C + 6 o The number of independent equations (arising out of material balance, energy balance, and equilibrium considerations) is CP + P + 1 In general C + 3 values are known from feed conditions: C concentrations in the feed stream (mole fractions zi), feed temperature (TF) and pressure (PF), and feed flow rate. Only two variables need to be specified to solve the system (i.e., obtain quantitative description of the system). For isothermal flash conditions, the system pressure P and temperature T are generally specified. The system can be reduced to one equation (Rachford-Rice) when the Kfactors are independent of the concentration:

Where, is the fraction of feed that is converted to vapor. This equation is solved for , and the remaining variables (concentrations in effluent phases, flow rates, heat duty) calculated from the independent equations. Adiabatic flash operations feature no external heat addition (Q = 0). The other variable generally specified is the effluent pressure. In this case, a trial and error procedure is generally adopted by assuming a temperature and solving the Rachford-Rice equation for . The calculated value of is compared with that obtained from energy balance (shown below), and the guess refined until an agreement between the two values is obtained.

Where h is the molar enthalpy and the subscripts refer to feed and the effluent phases. Alternatively, molar enthalpies are expressed as functions of temperature, substituted in Rachford-Rice equation, which is then solved explicitly for temperature. However, the resultant equation is highly complex and a solution may not be feasible. The Rachford-Rice algorithm can be adapted to treat a system that features 1 vapor and multiple liquid effluent phases.

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