Distillation, also classical distillation, is the process of separating the component substances of a liquid mixture of two or more chemically discrete substances; the separation process is realized by way of the selective boiling of the mixture and the condensation of the vapors in a still.
An azeotrope or a constant heating point mixture is a mixture of two or more components in fluidic states whose proportions cannot be altered or changed by simple distillation. This happens because when an azeotrope is boiled, the vapour has the same proportions of constituents as the unboiled mixture. Azeotropic mixture behavior is important for fluid separation processes.
Fractional distillation is the separation of a mixture into its component parts, or fractions. Chemical compounds are separated by heating them to a temperature at which one or more fractions of the mixture will vaporize. It uses distillation to fractionate. Generally the component parts have boiling points that differ by less than 25 °C (45 °F) from each other under a pressure of one atmosphere. If the difference in boiling points is greater than 25 °C, a simple distillation is typically used.
In chemistry, volatility is a material quality which describes how readily a substance vaporizes. At a given temperature and pressure, a substance with high volatility is more likely to exist as a vapour, while a substance with low volatility is more likely to be a liquid or solid. Volatility can also describe the tendency of a vapor to condense into a liquid or solid; less volatile substances will more readily condense from a vapor than highly volatile ones. Differences in volatility can be observed by comparing how fast substances within a group evaporate when exposed to the atmosphere. A highly volatile substance such as rubbing alcohol will quickly evaporate, while a substance with low volatility such as vegetable oil will remain condensed. In general, solids are much less volatile than liquids, but there are some exceptions. Solids that sublimate such as dry ice or iodine can vaporize at a similar rate as some liquids under standard conditions.
Continuous distillation, a form of distillation, is an ongoing separation in which a mixture is continuously fed into the process and separated fractions are removed continuously as output streams. Distillation is the separation or partial separation of a liquid feed mixture into components or fractions by selective boiling and condensation. The process produces at least two output fractions. These fractions include at least one volatile distillate fraction, which has boiled and been separately captured as a vapor condensed to a liquid, and practically always a bottoms fraction, which is the least volatile residue that has not been separately captured as a condensed vapor.
In thermodynamics, the internal energy of a system is expressed in terms of pairs of conjugate variables such as temperature and entropy, pressure and volume, or chemical potential and particle number. In fact, all thermodynamic potentials are expressed in terms of conjugate pairs. The product of two quantities that are conjugate has units of energy or sometimes power.
A theoretical plate in many separation processes is a hypothetical zone or stage in which two phases, such as the liquid and vapor phases of a substance, establish an equilibrium with each other. Such equilibrium stages may also be referred to as an equilibrium stage, ideal stage, or a theoretical tray. The performance of many separation processes depends on having series of equilibrium stages and is enhanced by providing more such stages. In other words, having more theoretical plates increases the efficiency of the separation process be it either a distillation, absorption, chromatographic, adsorption or similar process.
In thermodynamics and chemical engineering, the vapor–liquid equilibrium (VLE) describes the distribution of a chemical species between the vapor phase and a liquid phase.
The Dortmund Data Bank is a factual data bank for thermodynamic and thermophysical data. Its main usage is the data supply for process simulation where experimental data are the basis for the design, analysis, synthesis, and optimization of chemical processes. The DDB is used for fitting parameters for thermodynamic models like NRTL or UNIQUAC and for many different equations describing pure component properties, e.g., the Antoine equation for vapor pressures. The DDB is also used for the development and revision of predictive methods like UNIFAC and PSRK.
Jürgen Gmehling is a retired German professor of technical and industrial chemistry at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg.
The COCO Simulator is a free-of-charge, non-commercial, graphical, modular and CAPE-OPEN compliant, steady-state, sequential simulation process modeling environment. It was originally intended as a test environment for CAPE-OPEN modeling tools but now provides free chemical process simulation for students. It is an open flowsheet modeling environment allowing anyone to add new unit operations or thermodynamics packages.
In statistical thermodynamics, the UNIFAC method is a semi-empirical system for the prediction of non-electrolyte activity in non-ideal mixtures. UNIFAC uses the functional groups present on the molecules that make up the liquid mixture to calculate activity coefficients. By using interactions for each of the functional groups present on the molecules, as well as some binary interaction coefficients, the activity of each of the solutions can be calculated. This information can be used to obtain information on liquid equilibria, which is useful in many thermodynamic calculations, such as chemical reactor design, and distillation calculations.
In statistical thermodynamics, UNIQUAC is an activity coefficient model used in description of phase equilibria. The model is a so-called lattice model and has been derived from a first order approximation of interacting molecule surfaces. The model is, however, not fully thermodynamically consistent due to its two-liquid mixture approach. In this approach the local concentration around one central molecule is assumed to be independent from the local composition around another type of molecule.
The UNIFAC Consortium was founded at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg at the chair of industrial chemistry of Prof. Gmehling to invite private companies to support the further development of the group-contribution methods UNIFAC and its successor modified UNIFAC (Dortmund). Both models are used for the prediction of thermodynamic properties, especially the estimation of phase equilibria.
Reflux is a technique involving the condensation of vapors and the return of this condensate to the system from which it originated. It is used in industrial and laboratory distillations. It is also used in chemistry to supply energy to reactions over a long period of time.
A residue curve describes the change in the composition of the liquid phase of a chemical mixture during continuous evaporation at the condition of vapor–liquid equilibrium. Multiple residue curves for a single system are called residue curves map.
VTPR is an estimation method for the calculation of phase equilibria of mixtures of chemical components. The original goal for the development of this method was to enable the estimation of properties of mixtures which contain supercritical components. These class of substances couldn't be predicted with established models like UNIFAC.
COSMO-RS is a quantum chemistry based equilibrium thermodynamics method with the purpose of predicting chemical potentials μ in liquids. It processes the screening charge density σ on the surface of molecules to calculate the chemical potential μ of each species in solution. Perhaps in dilute solution a constant potential must be considered. As an initial step a quantum chemical COSMO calculation for all molecules is performed and the results are stored in a database. In a separate step COSMO-RS uses the stored COSMO results to calculate the chemical potential of the molecules in a liquid solvent or mixture. The resulting chemical potentials are the basis for other thermodynamic equilibrium properties such as activity coefficients, solubility, partition coefficients, vapor pressure and free energy of solvation. The method was developed to provide a general prediction method with no need for system specific adjustment.
Aspen Plus, Aspen HYSYS, ChemCad and MATLAB, PRO are the commonly used process simulators for modeling, simulation and optimization of a distillation process in the chemical industries. Distillation is the technique of preferential separation of the more volatile components from the less volatile ones in a feed followed by condensation. The vapor produced is richer in the more volatile components. The distribution of the component in the two phase is governed by the vapour-liquid equilibrium relationship. In practice, distillation may be carried out by either two principal methods. The first method is based on the production of vapor boiling the liquid mixture to be separated and condensing the vapors without allowing any liquid to return to the still. There is no reflux. The second method is based on the return of part of the condensate to still under such conditions that this returning liquid is brought into intimate contact with the vapors on their way to condenser.
The CAPE-OPEN Interface Standard consists of a series of specifications to expand the range of application of process simulation technologies. The CAPE-OPEN specifications define a set of software interfaces that allow plug and play inter-operability between a given Process Modelling Environment and a third-party Process Modelling Component.
