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Title

Liquid-Liquid Equilibrium and Extraction Using Mathematica
Author

Housam Binous
Organization: KFUPM
Department: Chemical Engineering
URL: http://sites.google.com/site/homepageofdrhousambinous/
Journal / Anthology

Computers in Education Journal
Year: 2006
Volume: 16
Issue: 1
Page range: 78-81
Description

In the present paper, we show a new approach, based on the utilization of Mathematica, to solve liquid-liquid extraction problems. Since liquid-liquid equilibrium data are primordial for the design of extraction columns,we start with the calculation of such data for a multi-component mixture using the NRTL model. We will consider a ternary mixture of benzene-ethanol-water at 25 degrees C. The built-in Mathematica function FindRoot is used to solve a system of nonlinear algebraic equations traducing the equilibrium relation between the two liquid phases. We also study the seperation of acetic acid from water using isopropyl ether for each of the following cases: single-feed countercurrent extractor and two-feed extraction column. We use the graphical method derived by Hunter and Nash and later by Kinney to obtain for both cases the number of equilibrium stages required to achieve a paricular raffinate specification. Finally, we use the McCabe-Thiele diagram to obtain the same value of the number of equilibrium stages. The notebooks are available from the author upon request or at Wolfram Research.
Subjects

*Engineering > Chemical Engineering
*Science > Chemistry
Keywords

liquid-liquid extraction, tie-lines, NRTL model, Hunter-Nash diagram, McCabe-Thiele method