Use of a Decanter to Recover Solvent and Cross Distillation Boundaries with Aspen HYSYS

Using Aspen HYSYS V8.0

Revised: November 26, 2012

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Objectives

Learn how to use a 3 phase separator to recover solvent

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Background
The decanter in this example is part of the heterogeneous azeotropic distillation process where ethanol and water are separated to produce anhydrous ethanol by using cyclohexane as the solvent. The feed to this decanter is the distillate product from the first column, which has a composition very close to the ethanol/water/cyclohexane ternary azeotrope.

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Key Teaching Points

Since cyclohexane and water are immiscible, one of the outlet streams from the decanter contains ~90% of cyclohexane and is recycled back to the first column. The second outlet stream from the decanter has a composition that is in a distillation region that is different from the distillation region that the first column is operated in. The second stream is feed to the second distillation column. Thus this decanter plays two roles:
Recover the solvent. Cross distillation boundaries.

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Recommended Further Exercises

Use a decanter to separate a stream consisting of water, n-butanol and 3-methylhexane with the following specifications:
Component flowrates: 50.03584, 0.0679802 and 78.66669 kmol/hr respectively. Temperature: 30 C. Pressure: 1 bar.

This is part of the solution to separate a 50:50 (on the mole basis) water/n-butanol mixture with one column and one decanter. This decanter is used to accomplish what is typically accomplished by the second column in an azeotropic distillation process to obtain a pure product and recover the solvent.

2012 Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved

Copyright
Copyright 2012 by Aspen Technology, Inc. (AspenTech). All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of AspenTech. ASPENTECH MAKES NO WARRANTY OR REPRESENTATION, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, WITH RESPECT TO THIS WORK and assumes no liability for any errors or omissions. In no event will AspenTech be liable to you for damages, including any loss of profits, lost savings, or other incidental or consequential damages arising out of the use of the information contained in, or the digital files supplied with or for use with, this work. This work and its contents are provided for educational purposes only. AspenTech, aspenONE, and the Aspen leaf logo, are trademarks of Aspen Technology, Inc.. Brands and product names mentioned in this documentation are trademarks or service marks of their respective companies.

2012 Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved