MODELING AND SIMULATION OF MULTICOMPONENT NONLINEAR CHROMATOGRAPHY

The equilibrium relationship between the stationary and the mobile pha se plays a leading role in chromatography; especially for higher conce ntrations where the equilibrium relationship becomes nonlinear. Based on local equilibrium theory, a simple numerical algorithm is developed by considering the multicomponent nonlinear equilibrium relationship and its Jacobian matrix to quickly obtain a first prediction of the ch romatographic separation without the need of providing mass transfer d ata. The impact of several favorable multicomponent equilibrium isothe rms on chromatographic separations is studied: The multicomponent Lang muir isotherm, a polynomial and an exponential extension of the multic omponent Langmuir isotherm. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.