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Title

Binary Distillation Column Design Using Mathematica
Authors

Akemi Gálvez
Organization: University of Cantabria, Santander, Spain
Andrés Iglesias
Organization: University of Cantabria
Department: Department of Applied Mathematics and Computational Science
Journal / Anthology

Lecture Notes in Computer Science
Year: 2003
Volume: 2657 (ICCS '03)
Page range: 848-857
Description

The accurate design of distillation columns is a very important topic in chemical industry. In this paper, we describe a Mathematica program for the design of distillation columns for binary mixtures. For simplicity, it is assumed that the columns are designed by following McCabe-Thiele’s procedure, a graphical method which determines both the number of stages required for the desired degree of separation and the location of the feed tray. Then, some other relevant column parameters (such as the height and diameter of the column, for example) are also determined. All results are obtained from an adequate combination of symbolic and numerical calculations taking advantage of the symbolic, numerical and graphical Mathematica programming tools. We remark that the same approach can be applied to any other kind of distillation columns by simply replacing our assumptions by those of each specific case. The performance of this program is shown through some illustrative examples. Finally, potential applications to both teaching and industry are also discussed.
Subject

*Science > Chemistry