CHAPTER 4 : CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the calculation made for this mini project was based on references from many
resources. Most of the compositions were assumed for the calculation of mass balance. At the
stream 1(feed), the mass fraction of Acetic Acid was assumed lower than the mass fraction of
water since the solution is dilute. 100% solvent assumed to enter stream 2 since hexanol was a
pure solvent. Hexanol was selected as the solvent since it is immiscible towards water and
miscible towards acetic acid. Other than that, hexanol has higher boiling point and lower
volatility compared to acetic acid. Hence, at the end of separation, acetic acid exist as a vapour in
extraction stream while hexanol exist as a liquid in raffinate stream .This characteristic is very
important since it will result to the amount of acetic acid separated from the dilute acetic acid
solutions. In extraction column, 100kg/s of solvent was used as the basis calculation feed since
the percentage recovery of acetic acid depends on the mass flow rate of the solvent
(Hexanol).The maximum amount of water which is 99% flow out in raffinate stream as
undesired product. Thus, loss of solvent to waste water can be minimize as much as possible. In
distillation column, in which separation of acetic acid and hexanol take place, 85% recovery of
solvent at bottom stream recovered from the solvent feed. Therefore, low cost solvent required in
order to achieve high purity of acetic acid which is 99% in extraction. Azeotrope also not
forming at the end of separation process which is easily for the next separation to take place.
From all the above statements, we can conclude that the extractive distillation is the best method
for separation and purification of acetic acid compared to other method.