DEVELOPMENT OF A SYSTEM FOR SCREENING POT ENTIAL ENTRAINERS IN AZEOTROPIC DISTILLATION PROCESSES

In the development of azeotropic distillation processes, screening pot ential entrainers that make separation feasible is generally acknowled ged to be very difficult. In this article, an attempt has been made to develop a system for screening potential entrainers used in azeotropi c distillation processes. The system has the following merits: (1) the system can present entrainers that satisfy the necessary conditions t o make separation feasible through azeotropic distillation and the cor responding feasible process configurations derived from them: (2) info rmation required by the system is qualitative, such as the existence o f azeotropes. the order of boiling points of pure materials and azeotr opes, and immiscibility of liquid phases. Such information can be supp lied from azeotropic and liquid-liquid equilibrium databases. The effe ctiveness of the system is demonstrated on a number of practical azeot ropic distillation processes.