NONIDEAL DISTILLATION IN AUTOMATED SYNTHESIS

We describe a rigorous shortcut procedure for designing nonideal disti llation processes. The procedure is based on a nonideal Fenske's equat ion with rigorous physical properties using an iterative method based on an infinite reflux calculation, which enabled us to determine the n ecessary design parameters. The procedure is implemented in CHiPS, a p ackage for automated synthesis incorporating heat integration, allowin g for accurate and fast synthesis of heat integrated process flowsheet s for nonideal mixtures. An example problem of synthesizing a process for tile separation of a three component nonideal mixture is presented . We show results both with and without heat integration. The results show how quickly the model converges to obtain the variables. A shortc ut procedure making use of rigorous equations provides a convenient wa y to obtain results for a first stage of the design in a very reasonab le amount of time.