Unit Operations of Chemical Engineering

Instructor: Hanieh Safari, Ph.D.

Lecture 4: Differential Distillation

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 Differential Distillation
• In batch operation, the feed is introduced batch-wise to the column. That is, the
column is charged with a 'batch' and then the distillation process is carried out. When
the desired task is achieved, a next batch of feed is introduced. Consider a binary
mixture of components A (more volatile) and B (less volatile). The system consists of a
batch of liquid (fixed quantity) inside a kettle (or still) fitted with heating element and
a condenser to condense the vapor produced as shown in Figure 5.7. The condensed
vapor is known as the distillate. The distillate is collected in a condensate receiver. The
liquid remaining in the still is known as the residual

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 Differential Distillation
• Mass Balance for the system

Overall Mass Balance : dL=-dD

Component A Mass Balance :𝑦 ∗ 𝑑𝐷 = −𝑑(𝐿𝑥)
𝑑𝐿 1
= ∗ 𝑑𝑥
𝐿 𝑦 −𝑥

Integration

"$
𝐹 𝑑𝑥
ln =/ ∗
𝑊 "# 𝑦 − 𝑥

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 Differential Distillation
• Example: The VLE curve of a binary system may be represented by a linear
equation over a narrow range of liquid mole fractions: 𝑦 ∗ = 1.325𝑥 + 0.121.
100 moles of Feed with x=0.256 is batch distilled to final residue with x=0.2.
Calculate the final moles of the liquid residue

"$ %.'()
𝐹 𝑑𝑥 𝑑𝑥
ln =/ ∗
= /
𝑊 "# 𝑦 − 𝑥 %.' 1.325𝑥 + 0.121 − 𝑥
0.256
𝐹 ln 0.325𝑥 + 0.121
ln =
𝑊 0.325
0.2
W=75.6 mol

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 Example
• A mixture of 40 mole % isopropanol in water is to be batch-distilled at 1 atm until 70 mole
% of the charge has been vaporized. Calculate the composition of the liquid residue
remaining in the still pot, and the average composition of the collected distillate. VLE data
for this system, in mole fraction of isopropanol, at 1 atm are (Seader and Henley, 1998):

Temp 𝟑𝟔𝟔 𝟑𝟓𝟕 𝟑𝟓𝟓. 𝟏 354.3 353.6 353.2

(K)
y 0.22 0.462 0.524 0.569 0.593 0.682
x 0.012 0.084 0.198 0.350 0.453 0.679

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 Differential Distillation: Constant Relative Volatility

𝛼𝑥
𝑅𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑣𝑜𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛: 𝑦∗ =
𝛼−1 𝑥+1

𝐹 1 𝑥* (1 − 𝑥+ ) (1 − 𝑥+ )
ln = ln + ln
𝑊 𝛼−1 𝑥+ (1 − 𝑥* ) (1 − 𝑥* )

• For ideal solutions, the relative volatility can be derived from pure component vapor
pressures
• If we neglect the variations of vapor pressures with temperature, then the relative
volatility can be assumed to be constant