Prediction of homogeneous azeotropes with interval analysis techniques exploiting topological considerations

In this paper, we present an efficient method for the prediction of homogen eous azeotropes. The method is an adaptation of a former method based on in terval analysis techniques. An interval Newton with generalized bisection ( IN/GB) technique is used to find all the roots of a set of equations repres enting the azeotropy condition. The novel contribution is to combine this r obust technique with the Zharov-Serafimov topological index theory. By chec king the topological consistency, it is possible to avoid the numerical ver ification of the nonexistence and therefore to reduce significantly the tot al computation time. In addition, a simplified model is selectively used at the first stage of the algorithm for providing good starting points for th e second stage, where the full model is used for solution refining. In this way, more computation time is saved without compromising the reliability o f the method. As a result, the performance of the method is comparable to t he one of the fastest local methods.