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050107
Figure 1
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COLUMN SPECIFICATION Stage numbering convention in CHEMCAD is top to bottom, 1 to N. A stage is considered the space above a plate. If a condenser is present it is stage 1. If a reboiler is present it is stage N. To model a column which has ten stages plus condenser and reboiler one must specify 12 stages in CHEMCAD (10+condenser+reboiler=12). If a condenser is present, the feed must not enter stage 1, as that is the condenser. Top stage feeds should enter stage 2, the top stage (plate), if a condenser is present. Likewise, if a reboiler is present a bottom plate feed is connected to stage (N-1), not stage N. CONVERGING TO RIGID CONSTRAINTS Typically the user has a specification to which they wish to desire a column. Quite often this is a restrictive composition, such as mass fraction of a key component in either the bottoms or tops. Chemstations, Inc. 2901 Wilcrest Drive, Suite 305 Houston, TX 77042 USA 713.978.7700 Voice 713.978.7727 FAX 800.243.6223 Tollfree
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rev. 050107
Example: Recovery of high purity ethanol An SCDS column with 8 stages, a condenser, and reboiler is used to separate a mixture of 1000 lb/hr ethanol, 1000 lb/hr water. Temperature is 70F and pressure is 15psia. The goal is to obtain high purity ethanol in the distillate. The K model is set to NRTL (Thermodynamics menu > K Value), which is capable of accurately modeling the nonideal system wateralcohol. It is important to note that there is an azeotrope in this system at high levels of alcohol. Specify 10 stages for the column, with feed on stage 3.
Now set loose specifications for the condenser and reboiler. For columns with total condensers, a reflux ratio of 1.2 is a good specification for the condenser. For partial condensers, reflux ratio of 5 is often a decent start. A good initial specification for reboilers is mass flowrate. There are 2000 lb/hr entering the column; set the bottoms to have 1500 lb/hr. Chemstations, Inc. 2901 Wilcrest Drive, Suite 305 Houston, TX 77042 USA 713.978.7700 Voice 713.978.7727 FAX 800.243.6223 Tollfree
http://www.chemstations.net
rev. 050107
Run the flowsheet. The column will converge. It is now time to tighten the specifications toward the target. Visual inspection of the tops stream shows that mass fraction of ethanol is 0.86. Change the condenser specification to distillate component mass fraction, set ethanol as the component, and set the spec as 0.91. Visual inspection of the bottoms shows that ~950 lb/hr of water is here. Change the reboiler specification to bottom component mass flowrate, set the component to Water, and specify 980 lb/hr.
The next step is crucial: go to the specifications page. On the right hand side is the field initial flag. Set this to mode 0: reload column profile. This setting instructs the model to use the current temperature, pressure, and composition profile of the column as the starting values for the next calculation. By starting from the current converged profile, the numerical method packages can find a tighter solution. Note that there are other modes which allow you to specify a profile yourself. These are particularly useful in starting a model of an existing unit; you already have a rough profile across the stages.
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Chemstations, Inc. 2901 Wilcrest Drive, Suite 305 Houston, TX 77042 USA 713.978.7700 Voice 713.978.7727 FAX 800.243.6223 Tollfree
rev. 050107
Run the column. It will converge. Now change the setting on the condenser to 0.95 and run the column. The following message will appear.
The column has not converged. CHEMCAD is asking if you want to save the current profile, which is not a converged result. If you save the profile you may run more iterations of the column methods; sometimes this leads to a solution. If more iterations does not converge the column, you will have to start this column over from the beginning. This can be tedious; it is often easier to make small changes rather than jumps. Press [NO] to discard the current profile, CHEMCAD will revert to the converged profile from before (top specification 0.91, bottom specification 980). The jump from 0.91 to 0.95 was too large to be solved in 40 iterations (default number of iterations for SCDS). We will try a smaller change. Set the top specification to 0.93 and the bottom specification to 990. Run the column. We return to Thermodynamics to check the feasibility of distilling for higher purity. Zooming in on a TPXY plot (Plot menu > TPXY) of the system we see that we are quite close to the azeotrope. It will be difficult to obtain higher purity; more stages are likely needed. The reboiler specification should be changed to a bottoms component mass fraction. We end the exercise here; the user may wish to continue towards 0.95 mass fraction as an exercise.
http://www.chemstations.net
Chemstations, Inc. 2901 Wilcrest Drive, Suite 305 Houston, TX 77042 USA 713.978.7700 Voice 713.978.7727 FAX 800.243.6223 Tollfree