Lecture 1.

13

Recycle, Bypass, and Purge

CH125P Chemical Engineering Calculations
Recycle
It is rare for chemical reactions to proceed to completion in reactors; some reactant is normally
found in the product no matter how little reactant there is at the beginning, or regardless of how
long the reaction is carried out.
This presents an economical problem: any reactant that leaves with the product represents wasted
resources.
However, if there is a way to separate this reactant from the product, the unconsumed reactant can
then be recycled back to the reactor. The additional costs for the separation and recycle will most
likely be compensated by having to purchase less fresh reactant, and being able to sell the purified
product at a higher price!
Recycling is defined as feeding back material from a downstream unit to an upstream unit. The
stream containing the recycle material is called the recycle stream.

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Recycle
Consider as an example the following process, involving a chemical reaction.
The fresh feed is the feed entering
the overall system; the overall
product is that removed from the
overall system.
The total or gross feed is the
feed to the reactor, which are
is fresh feed and recycle stream
combined.
The gross product is that removed
from the reactor.

There is no new technique needed in approaching material balance problems involving

recycle! In this example, balances can be written on the overall process and the reactor, separator,
and mixing point. Don’t be concerned about accumulation—we are solving steady-state problems!

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Recycle
Besides recovering and reusing unconsumed reactants, there are other reasons for using recycle
in a chemical process:
• catalyst recovery
Catalysts are usually expensive, and processes generally include provisions for recovering them
from the product stream and recycling them to the reactor.
• process stream dilution
As an example, filtering a concentrated suspension may prove to be difficult without diluting
the suspension first; the filtrate itself can be used as the diluent.
• process control
Suppose a reaction releases too much energy as heat—the rate of heat generation can be
controlled by diluting the reactant stream.
• circulation of working fluid
In refrigerators and air conditioners, the refrigerant is reused indefinitely.

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Recycle
Exercise 1.14.1
Fresh air containing 4.00 mole% water vapor is to be cooled and dehumidified to a water content of
1.70 mole% H2O. A stream of fresh air is combined with a recycle stream of previously dehumidified
air and passed through the cooler. The blended stream entering the unit contains 2.30% mole H2O.
In the air conditioner, some of the water in the feed stream is condensed and removed as liquid. A
fraction of the dehumidified air leaving the cooler is recycled and the remainder is delivered to a
room. Taking 100 mol of dehumidified air delivered to the room as a basis of calculation, calculate
the moles of fresh feed, moles of water condensed, and moles of dehumidifier air recycled.

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Recycle
Exercise 1.14.1

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Recycle
Exercise 1.14.1

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Bypass
A procedure that has several features in common with recycle is bypass, in which a fraction of the
feed to a process unit is diverted around the unit and combined with the output stream for the unit.
By varying the fraction of the feed that is bypassed, we can vary the composition and properties of
the product.

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Bypass
Exercise 1.14.2
In the feedstock preparation section of a plant manufacturing natural gasoline, isopentane is
removed from butane-free gasoline containing 80% by mass n-pentane and the remaining
isopentane. One hundred kilograms of fresh gasoline enters the process. A fraction of this stream is
bypassed around a separation unit, in which the remaining feed passes through to completely
separate the isopentane from the n-butane. The isopentane is removed as a byproduct, the
remaining pure n-pentane is mixed with the bypass stream, and the final product containing 90%
n-pentane and 10% isopentane is sent to a natural gasoline plant. What fraction of the butane-free
gasoline is passed through the separation unit?

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Bypass
Exercise 1.14.2

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Bypass
Exercise 1.14.2

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Purge
A purge stream is a stream bled off from the process to remove an accumulation of inerts or
unwanted material that might otherwise build up in the recycle stream.

Suppose materials that enter with the fresh feed or are produced by a reaction remains entirely in a
recycle stream, rather than being removed via the product stream. If nothing was done about this
situation, the substance would continuously enter the process, steadily accumulate, and prevent the
attainment of a steady state.
Purging is more common in reactive process schemes, so we will not discuss it further here.

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 Lecture 1.13

Recycle, Bypass, and Purge

CH125P Chemical Engineering Calculations
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