Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering

Computer Aided Process Design (CAPD)

Two stage flash separation

Prof. Farhadi
Homework No one Offered 95.07.23 to return before 95.08.14

Abstract

Liquid ethylene glycol (EG) and water are supposed to separate using single or even two stage
flash drums, in current home work. Since, normal boiling points of the mentioned components
are wide enough, providing heat to fulfill the separation is of interest. Accordingly, proper
thermodynamic model to predict vapor-liquid equilibria of the components are explored and
comparison study between experimental study and those of simulation software reveals that
BWRs is pioneer than NRTL with less relative error.

Keyword: EG. Water, Simulation, Thermodynamic model

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Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering
Computer Aided Process Design (CAPD)

A mixture containing 50-50 mole % of water and ethylene glycol (EG) is considered for
simulation with temperature of 20 °C, pressure of 3 bar and flow rate of 135 kg/h.
Thermodynamic property packages of BWR and NRTL are proposed for the current mixture.

1-a

Using NRTL as thermodynamic property model, the feed stream is single phase accordingly,
installing simple flash drum equipment without external heat input do not bear food. In order to
recover 90 % of EG from water, pure and binary properties of the components under study are
given in Table 1.

Table 1. Properties of pure components

Property EG Water
Component
Molecular weight (g/mol) 62.07 18.02
Chemical formula C2H6O2 H2O
Normal Boiling Point (°C) 197.2 100
Boiling Point at 3 bar (°C) 237.2 133.6

Since, boiling points of the components are of wide difference, T-xy diagram demonstrated in
Figure 1 confirms the separation task is an easy process for pressure between 1 and 3 bar.
Furthermore, no azeotrope between components is seen and also this fact is confirmed via
azeotrope survey tool embedded into Aspen Plus simulation software.

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Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering
Computer Aided Process Design (CAPD)

Figure 1. T-xy diagram for EG and water

Figure 2 depicts that the experimental binary data of EG and water are retrieved from NIST data
base and compared with that of simulation at 1 bar.

Figure 2. Comparison of NIST data and thermodynamic data of Aspen plus software using
NRTL

Figure 2 shows that NIST data and simulation results for bubble curve consistent each other well
while dew point somewhat differ especially at low concentration of EG (lower than 10 mol %).
Then, the BWRs property model is checked via experimental and the results given in Figure 3
demonstrate this thermodynamic model is in good agreement with experimental data at 1 bar.
Hence, BWRs is suggested for simulation purpose. Figure 4 which plots P-xy diagram shows
that the thermodynamic model and experiment one conforms well to each other. For all ranges of
EG mole fraction, BWRs better predicts VLE data comparing to NRTL.

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Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering
Computer Aided Process Design (CAPD)

Figure 3. Comparison of NIST data and thermodynamic data of Aspen plus software using
BWRs

Figure 4. Comparison of NIST data and thermodynamic data of Aspen plus software for P-xy
using BWRs

Table 1 shows that as long as operating pressure increases, boiling points of the components also
increase and this author believes that it is better to reduce the operating pressure (using valve) till
1 bar to save in external heat input fulfilling the separation. Figure 5 shows that when only
operating pressure is reduced, no significant change in composition of the components is
observed due to this fact that pressure has small effect of thermodynamic properties of liquid
materials. Based on this result, this author is trying to elaborate temperature of flash drum to
perform separation at 1 bar.

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Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering
Computer Aided Process Design (CAPD)

EG mole fraction at liquid phase

0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
100 150 200 250 300
Pressure (kPa)

Figure 5. Effect of operating pressure on performance of separation of water from EG

1-b

In order to recover 90 % of EG from the mixture at 1 bar using BWRs property model in single
flash drum equipment, the temperature should be increased. Figure 6 and 7 shows the used
flowsheet in Aspen plus and Aspen Hysys process simulator software’s, respectively.

FD-1VAP

FD-1

F-10

FD-1LIQ

Figure 6. Flowsheet of Aspen Plus

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Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering
Computer Aided Process Design (CAPD)

Figure 7. Flowsheet of Aspen Hysys

Table 2 compares the results of Aspen plus with that of Aspen Hysys to separate 90 % of EG
from water in a single flash drum using BWRs at 1 bar pressure. It is seen that two temperatures
are reported in Table 2 satisfying 90 % recovery of EG. However, we only found proposed
BWRs property package over NRTL only in Aspen plus and no confirmation is conducted for
Hysys. Accordingly, rest of simulation is carried out using Aspen Plus.

Table 2. Comparing results of Aspen plus with that of Aspen Hysys

Property Hysys Aspen plus

Software
0.0709 0.0633
Water mass fraction at liquid phase
0.9291 0.9367
EG mass fraction at liquid phase
101.4 100.58
Liquid rate (kg/h)
33.62 34.42
Vapor rate (kg/h)
0.6894 0.6974
Water mass fraction at vapor phase
0.3106 0.3026
EG mass fraction at vapor phase
128.8 133.5
Temperature (°C)
24.71 25.59
Heat duty (kW)

As previously shown, lower pressure is proffered for simulation resulting in lower boiling
temperature.

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Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering
Computer Aided Process Design (CAPD)

1-c

For two consequence flash drums, Figure 8 and Table 2 confirm that more than 90 % of EG can
be recovered via indirect sequence due to volatility of EG.

B1
4

1
B2

Figure 8. Indirect sequence of EG and water separation

Table 3. Aspen plus results of indirect sequence at 1 bar pressure

Property 1st flash drum 2nd flash drum

Software
Liquid draw Vapor draw Liquid draw Vapor draw
Water mass fraction 0.1118 0.8298 0.0633 0.6974

EG mass fraction 0.8882 0.1702 0.9367 0.3036

Flow rate (kg/h) 113.73 21.27 105.02 8.71

Temperature (°C) 120 133.5

Heat duty (kW) 18.88 5.39

Conclusion:

In order to separate EG and water, single or two-stage flash drum with indirect sequence can be
used. The required energy to achieve 90 % recovery of EG from water, the required external
energy are 24.27 and 25.59 kW for single and indirect sequence, respectively. Final comparison
can be reached when cost estimation tools are associated with simulation results.