Worksheet 2.

SOLID-LIQUID EXTRACTION CH138P

Name: SEPARATION PROCESSES Page 1 of 1

Present clean and clear solutions to the following problems. Highlight your final answer by enclosing it within a box.

1. Fifty thousand kg/h of flaked soybeans, containing 20 wt% oil, is to be leached of the oil with the same flow rate of n-hexane
in a countercurrent flow system consisting of an ideal leaching stage and 3 ideal washing stages. Experiments show that the
underflow from each stage will contain 0.8 liquid /kg soybeans (oil-free basis). Determine the % recovery of oil in the final
extract.

2. Titanium dioxide, which is the most common white pigment in paint, can be produced from the titanium mineral, rutile, by
chlorination to TiCl4, followed by oxidation to TiO2. To purify the insoluble titanium dioxide, it is washed free of soluble
impurities in a continuous, countercurrent system of thickeners with water. Two hundred thousand kg/h of 99.9 wt%
titanium dioxide pigment is to be produced by washing, followed by filtering and drying. The feed contains 50 wt% TiO2, 20
wt% soluble salts and 30 wt% water. The wash liquid is pure water at a flow rate equal to that of the feed on a mass flow
basis. Use the Ponchon-Savarit method to determine the number of ideal stages required if the underflow is variable as
follows:
kg solute/kg solution kg solution/kg TiO2
0.0 0.30
0.2 0.34
0.4 0.38
0.6 0.42

3. Rework the previous problem. Determine the number of ideal stages using the McCabe-Smith method.

4. A countercurrent extraction system is to treat 100 kg/min of sliced sugar beets with fresh water as solvent. Analysis of the
beets is as follows:
water 48%
sugar 12%
pulp 40%

97% sugar is to be recovered and the extract phase leaving the system is to contain 15% sugar. Determine the number of
cells required if each kg of dry pulp retains 3 kg of water.

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