Chapter 1

Separation Processes

§1.0 INSTRUCTIONAL OBJECTIVES

After completing this chapter, you should be able to:
Explain the role of separation operations in the chemical and biochemical industries.
Explain what constitutes the separation of a mixture and how each of the five basic separation techniques works.
Calculate component material balances around a separation operation based on specifications of component recov-
ery (split ratios or split fractions) and/or product purity.
Use the concept of key components and separation factor to measure separation between two key components.
Understand the concept of sequencing of separation operations, particularly distillation.
Explain the major differences between chemical and biochemical separation processes.
Make a selection of separation operations based on factors involving feed and product property differences and
characteristics of separation operations.

S eparation processes developed by early civilizations in-
clude (1) extraction of metals from ores, perfumes from flow-
ers, dyes from plants, and potash from the ashes of burnt
plants; (2) evaporation of sea water to obtain salt; (3) refining
of rock asphalt; and (4) distilling of liquors. In addition, the
human body could not function if it had no kidney—an organ
containing membranes that separates water and waste prod-
ucts of metabolism from blood.
Chemists use chromatography, an analytical separation
method, to determine compositions of complex mixtures,
and preparative separation techniques to recover chemicals.
Chemical engineers design industrial facilities that employ
separation methods that may differ considerably from those
of laboratory techniques. In the laboratory, chemists separate
light-hydrocarbon mixtures by chromatography, while a
manufacturing plant will use distillation to separate the same
mixture.
This book develops methods for the design of large-scale
separation operations, which chemical engineers apply to
produce chemical and biochemical products economically.
Included are distillation, absorption, liquid–liquid extraction,
leaching, drying, and crystallization, as well as newer meth-
ods such as adsorption, chromatography, and membrane
separation.
Engineers also design small-scale industrial separation
systems for manufacture of specialty chemicals by batch
processing, recovery of biological solutes, crystal growth of
semiconductors, recovery of chemicals from wastes, and de-
velopment of products such as lung oxygenators and the arti-
ficial kidney. The design principles for these smaller-scale
operations are also covered in this book. Both large- and
small-scale industrial operations are illustrated in examples
and homework exercises.
§1.1 INDUSTRIAL CHEMICAL PROCESSES
The chemical and biochemical industries manufacture prod-
ucts that differ in composition from feeds, which are (1) nat-
urally occurring living or nonliving materials, (2) chemical
intermediates, (3) chemicals of commerce, or (4) waste prod-
ucts. Especially common are oil refineries (Figure 1.1),
which produce a variety of products [1]. The products from,
say, 150,000 bbl/day of crude oil depend on the source of the
crude and the refinery processes, which include distillation to
separate crude into boiling-point fractions or cuts, alkylation
to combine small molecules into larger molecules, catalytic
reforming to change the structure of hydrocarbon molecules,
catalytic cracking to break apart large molecules, hydro-
cracking to break apart even larger molecules, and processes
to convert crude-oil residue to coke and lighter fractions.
A chemical or biochemical plant is operated in a batch-
wise, continuous, or semicontinuous manner. The operations
may be key operations unique to chemical engineering bec-
ause they involve changes in chemical composition, or auxil-
iary operations, which are necessary to the success of the key
operations but may be designed by mechanical engineers be-
cause the operations do not involve changes in chemical
composition. The key operations are (1) chemical reactions
and (2) separation of chemical mixtures. The auxiliary opera-
tions include phase separation, heat addition or removal (heat
exchangers), shaft work (pumps or compressors), mixing or
dividing of streams, solids agglomeration, size reduction of