PTT 356 Separation Engineering

What is Separation and Separation

Processes?
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 Chemist vs chemical engineers
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 Why Separation Processes are
Important?
 Almost every element or compound is found naturally in an impure state
such as a mixture of two or more substances. Many times the need to
separate it into its individual components arises.
 A typical chemical plant is a chemical reactor surrounded by separators.
Separators
Products

Reactor Separator
Raw
materials

Separation
& purification

By products

 Chemical plants commonly have 50-90% of their capital invested in

separation equipments.
 Why Separation is Difficult to
Occur?

 Second law of thermodynamics

 Substances are tend to mix together naturally andspontaneously
 All natural processes take place to increase the entropy,or randomness, of
the universe
 To separate a mixture of species into products of different composition, we must
supply the equivalent of energy (heat or work)

The fundamentals that we will apply to study separations in this course involve:

• Materials and energy balances: conservation of energy and matter

• Thermodynamics: phase equilibrium and solution thermodynamics
• Transport phenomena
• Chemical reaction kinetics: rate of conversion of one species to another
Separations processes can be run in various modes of operation:
 Batchwise: no flows
 Continuous: continuous flows in and out of separators
 Semicontinuous: pauses in flows.
Operations are classified as key operations and auxiliary operations
 Key Operation: involves reaction or separations
Examples: distillation, leaching, reactor
 Auxiliary Operation: involves no change in chemical composition
Examples: pumps, heaters, compressors
Block Flow Diagrams indicate:
•Key Operations by rectangles and
•Flows and Streams by lines

Process Flow Diagrams indicates processes by:

•Realistic symbols of process equipment
•Including auxiliary operations
Basic Description ofOperations
Block Flow Diagram Process Flow Diagram Auxiliary
operations
Distillation Distillation

S1 P1

Total condenser

Reflux drum
Overhead vapor

1 Reflux
F Distillate
2

Feed Feed Stage

Boilup
Stripping section stages N
Partial reboiler

P2 S2 Bottoms
 Example
Example: Recovery of hydrocarbons from wet natural gas (wng)
These types of separations generally exploit the differences in volatility to cause a separation

Notice that this process involves a train of separators:

This is common in industrial processes.
Basic separation technique
 The creation of a mixture of chemical species from the separate species is a spontaneous
process that requires no energy input.
 The inverse process, separation of a chemical mixture into pure components, is not a
spontaneous process and thus requires energy.
 A mixture to be separated may be single or multiphase.
 If it is multiphase, it is usually advantageous to first separate the phases.
Basic separation technique
Separation by phase Separation by phase
creation addition

Separation by force field or

gradient.

Separation by Separation by solid

barrier agent
1.Separation by phase creation
 Created by an energy separating agent (ESA).
 An ESA involves heat transfer or transfer of shaft work to or from
the mixture. An example of shaft work is the creation of vapor from a
liquid phase by reducing the pressure.

2.Separation by phase addition

 Added by a mass-separating agent (MSA).
 An MSA may be partially immiscible with one or more mixture components
and frequently is the constituent of highest concentration in the added
phase.
 Alternatively, the MSA may be miscible with a liquid feed mixture, but may
selectively alter partitioning of species between liquid and vapor phases.
 Disadvantages of using an MSA are
(1) need for an additional separator to recover the MSA for recycle
(2) need for MSA makeup
(3) possible MSA product contamination, and
(4) more difficult design procedures.
Separation by Phase Addition or Creation
Separation by Phase Addition or Creation (Cont.)
Separation by Phase Addition or Creation (Cont.)
3.Separation by barrier
 Use of microporous and nonporous membranes as semipermeable
barriers for selective separations is gaining adherents.
 Membranes are fabricated mainly from natural fibers and synthetic
polymers, but also from ceramics and metals.
 Membrane-separation operations;
1) Osmosis
2) Reverse osmosis
3) Dialysis
4) Microfiltration
5) Ultrafiltration
6) Pervaporation
7) Gas permeation
8) Liquid membrane
Separation by Barrier
4.Separation by solid agent
 The solid, in the form of a granular material or packing, is
the adsorbent itself, or it acts as an inert support for a
thin layer of adsorbent by selective adsorption or
chemical reaction with species in the feed.
 Separations that use solid agents;
1) Adsorption
2) Chromatoghraphy
3) Ion exchange
Separation by solid agent
5.Separation by force field or gradient
 External fields can take advantage of differing degrees
of response of molecules and ions to force fields.
 Separation Operations by Applied Field or Gradient;
1) Centrifugation
2) Thermal diffusion
3) Electrolysis
4) Electrodialysis
5) Electrophoresis
6) Field-flow fractionation
Separation by force field or gradient
Selection of feasible separation operations