STC on Process Simulators for Chemical Engineering Applications (MNIT Jaipur, 25-29th Sep, 2020)

Distillation Column Design

Prob 1: Binary Distillation (Shortcut Column)
A feed mixture consisting of 60 mole% ethanol and 40 mole% water, is to be separated using a shortcut
distillation column having a flowrate of 100 kmol/hr at 40oC and 1 atm so as to recover 85% of the light key
component in the liquid distillate and 80% of the heavy key component in the bottoms. The column operates at
1 atm with no pressure drop throughout. Consider total condenser and the column to be operated with reflux
ratio equivalent to 1.5 times the minimum. Applying Raoult’s Law property model, simulate the shortcut
column.
Perform sensitivity analysis: Effect of feed temperature on condenser duty and reboiler duty.
Solution:
Stepwise Procedure:
1. Start DWSIM and File/New process simulation model.
2. Simulation Configuration Wizard will pop up. Click Next.
3. Add specified components (Ethanol & Water). Click Next.
4. Choose Raoult’s Law as Fluid Property Package. Click Next.
5. Choose required system of units. Choose C5. Click Finish.
6. Add a material stream, named as Feed. Click on the item. Go to ‘compound amounts’ and enter the specified
mole fractions. Go to ‘Stream conditions’ and enter the specified conditions such as temperature, pressure, &
molar flow, etc.
7. Go to ‘Columns’ and add ‘Shortcut column’.
8. Add two material streams for Distillate and Bottom products. Don’t specify the stream conditions, it will be
calculated.
9. Add two energy streams for Reboiler and Condenser Duty.
10. Click on the Shortcut column item. Connect Feed, Distillate, Bottom, Reboiler & Condenser duty.
11. Then choose Ethanol as ‘light key component’ and water as ‘heavy key component’.
12. Enter the specified amount for ‘light key mole fractions in bottoms’ and ‘heavy key mole fractions in
distillate’. The calculation of mole fractions is as follows:

Components Feed Distillate Bottoms

kmol/hr
Ethanol 60 0.85 * 60 = 51 0.15 * 60 = 9
Water 40 0.2 * 40 = 8 0.8 * 40 = 32
Total 100 59 41

Light key mole fraction in bottoms = 9/41 = 0.219

Heavy key mole fraction in distillate = 8/59 = 0.135

13. Keep default ‘Reflux Ratio’ as 1.5.

14. Choose option for ‘Total condenser type’.
15. Solve flowsheet. Blue colour flowsheet confirms ‘no error’.
16. Once solved, calculate [Reflux Ratio = (1.5 x minimum reflux ratio)]. In this case it is 0.66 [RR = 1.5 x
0.44]. Put reflux ratio equal to 0.66 replacing 1.5 in step 13. (Important step)
17. Solve flow sheet again.

Adding Property Table:

1. Go to Insert. Click ‘Master property table’.
2. Double click to box appeared in simulation canvas. In object type, select all the “material streams” from
dropdown menu. Select all streams. In order object by, Select required properties and close it.
3. Repeat step 2 to get energy streams.
4. Go to Insert. Click ‘Property table’.
5. Double click to edit. Select distillation column. Select required properties and close it.

Sensitivity Analysis:
STC on Process Simulators for Chemical Engineering Applications (MNIT Jaipur, 25-29th Sep, 2020)
We want to see the Effect of feed temperature on reboiler and condenser duty.
1. Go to ‘Optimization’ and click ‘Sensitivity Analysis’.
2. Case Manager/New. Specify title.
3. Go to ‘Independent Variables’. Choose ‘Feed’ in Object and ‘Temperature’ in Property.
4. Specify lower and upper limit with specified number of points.
5. Go to ‘Dependent Variables’. Click green “+” button to add.
6. Choose ‘Reboiler duty’ in object and ‘Energy flow’ in Property.
7. Go to ‘Results’. Click ‘Start Sensitivity Analysis’.
8. Go to ‘Chart’ once iteration is completed.
9. Choose ‘Temperature’ in X-axis and ‘Reboiler duty’ in Y-axis. Click ‘Draw’.
10. Repeat above step to get a plot of Condenser duty vs Temperature.
Raoult’s Law property model:

Raoult’s Law
STC on Process Simulators for Chemical Engineering Applications (MNIT Jaipur, 25-29th Sep, 2020)
Effect of feed temperature on condenser duty:

Effect of feed temperature on reboiler duty:

Prob 2: Binary Distillation (Rigorous Column)

A feed mixture consisting of 60 mole% ethanol and 40 mole% water, is to be separated using a shortcut
distillation column having a flowrate of 100 kmol/hr at 40oC and 1 atm so as to recover 85% of the light key
component in the liquid distillate and 80% of the heavy key component in the bottoms. The column operates at
1 atm with no pressure drop throughout. Consider total condenser and the column to be operated with reflux
ratio equivalent to 1.5 times the minimum. Applying Raoult’s property model, simulate the rigorous column.
We have to use the data of shortcut distillation to simulate it.
Solution:
Stepwise Procedure:
1. Open the DWSIM file of shortcut distillation column.
2. Go to file menu. Click ‘Save as’ and write ‘Rigorous column (Binary)’. (Actually, we are renaming it to
reduce our entries)
3. Now delete the shortcut column. Add a ‘Distillation column’ from column menu.
4. Click on the column. Go to ‘Specification’ tab. Go to ‘General’.
5. Enter number of stages equal to 10 (as suggested by shortcut column).
6. Click ‘Condenser’ tab. Put 0.6 under the compound tab of Reflux ratio specification.
7. Go to ‘Reboiler’ tab. Put reboiler pressure of 1.11458 bar (slightly higher than the condenser pressure).
8. Enter 38.4696 kmol/h under the compound tab of ‘Product molar flow’ specification. (Value suggested by
shortcut column)
9. Click Configuration ⟶ Connections ⟶ Stream connections ⟶ Feeds. Under material stream select
‘Feed’ at Column feed port #5.
10. Click Connections ⟶ Stream connections ⟶ Products. Under material stream choose ‘Distillate’ for
distillate and ‘Bottom’ for bottoms.
STC on Process Simulators for Chemical Engineering Applications (MNIT Jaipur, 25-29th Sep, 2020)
11. Click Connections ⟶ Stream connections ⟶ Duties. Under energy stream select reboiler and condenser
duty accordingly.
12. Click Configuration ⟶ Connections ⟶ Stream stage associations. Under stage location select Stage-5 for
Feed (as suggested by SC column).
13. Go to Configuration ⟶ Stages. Click this button to estimate stage pressures by interpolation.
(Important step)
14. Solve flowsheet.
15. Go to ‘Results’. Click ‘View Temperature, Pressure and Composition Profiles’.

Adding Property Table:

1. Go to Insert. Click ‘Master property table’.
2. Double click to edit. Select all the material streams. Select required properties and close it.
3. Repeat step 2 to get energy streams.
4. Go to Insert. Click ‘Property table’.
5. Double click to edit. Select distillation column. Select required properties and close it.

Temperature & Pressure profile with representation of initial estimates

STC on Process Simulators for Chemical Engineering Applications (MNIT Jaipur, 25-29th Sep, 2020)

Flow Profile

Component Flow profile

Component Mole Fractions profile

STC on Process Simulators for Chemical Engineering Applications (MNIT Jaipur, 25-29th Sep, 2020)
Multicomponent Distillation with Single Column (Shortcut Column): [Example 22.3, P720, McCabe & Smith (6th
ed)]

A mixture of 100 mol/h with 33% n-hexane, 37% n-heptane, and 30% n-octane is to be distilled to give a
distillate product with 0.01 mole fraction n-heptane and a bottom product with 0.01 mole fraction n-hexane.
The column will operate at 1.2 atm with 60 percent vaporized feed. Applying UNIQUAC and UINIFAC
property model, simulate the shortcut column. Calculate the complete product compositions and the minimum
number of ideal plates at infinite reflux.
a) Perform sensitivity analysis: Effect of feed temperature on condenser duty and reboiler duty.
b) Estimate the property of distillation column at 1.5 times of minimum reflux ratio.
c) Perform the rigorous distillation design.

UNIFAC property model:

UNIFAC UNIQUAC
UNIQUAC property model:
STC on Process Simulators for Chemical Engineering Applications (MNIT Jaipur, 25-29th Sep, 2020)
STC on Process Simulators for Chemical Engineering Applications (MNIT Jaipur, 25-29th Sep, 2020)
Multiple Distillation Column: A stream of 100 lbmol/hr of saturated liquid at 20 psia with the following
composition:

Component mol%
ethanol 25
n-propanol 50
isobutanol 10
n-butanol 15

This mixture is to be separated into three desired product streams according to the following specifications:
1. Ethanol rich stream: 98 mol% ethanol with a recovery of at least 98%.
2. N-propanol rich stream: containing mostly n-propanol and virtually all the remaining ethanol, but no more
than 2% of the isobutanol in the feed mixture.
3. Butanol rich stream: containing all the n-butanol, at least 98% of the isobutanol in the feed, and no more
than 1% of the n-propanol in the feed mixture.

Two distillation columns, operating at moderate pressures, are used for the separation:

Performing shortcut column design

Set up both columns as follows:
o Total condenser. Top Product Phase is Liquid
o Condenser and reboiler pressures of 20 psi (a simplification)
o For column D1 use n-propanol as the light key and isobutanol as the heavy key.
o For column D2 use ethanol as the light key and n-propanol as the heavy key.
o Reflux ratio = 1.3×Rmin.
STC on Process Simulators for Chemical Engineering Applications (MNIT Jaipur, 25-29th Sep, 2020)

(Aspen data)

1. Take required information from the table to run the shortcut column.
2. Perform rigorous distillation design.

After performing rigorous design, you may get the following results:

Name DIS2 DIS1 BOT2 BOT1 FEED

Vapour Fraction 0 0 0 0 0
Temperature [F] 187.51 206.58 221.59 251.64 214.83
Pressure [psia] 20.00 20.00 20.00 20.00 20.00
Molar Flow 25.00 74.71 49.71 25.29 100.00
[lbmole/hr]
Mass Flow [lb/hr] 1157.79 4141.04 2983.25 1868.59 6009.62
Liquid Volume Flow [ft3/hr] 23.29 82.74 59.44 36.96 119.69
Heat Flow [Mkcal/h] -0.73 -2.29 -1.56 -0.84 -3.14

Name DIS1 BOT1 DIS2 BOT2 FEED

Master Comp Molar Flow (Ethanol) [lbmole/hr] 25.00 0.00 24.57 0.43 25.00
Master Comp Molar Flow (1-Propanol) [lbmole/hr] 49.57 0.43 0.43 49.14 50.00
Master Comp Molar Flow (i-Butanol) [lbmole/hr] 0.14 9.86 0.00 0.14 10.00
Master Comp Molar Flow (1-Butanol) [lbmole/hr] 0.00 15.00 0.00 0.00 15.00