TABLE OF CONTENTS Key Learning Objectives
How to design distillation columns
How to size distillation columns and select and design distillation column trays
How to design distillation columns using packing instead of trays
How to design liquid-liquid extraction columns
This chapter covers the design of separating columns. Though the emphasis is on distillation processes, the basic construction features and many of the design methods also apply to other multistage processes, such as stripping, absorption, and extraction.
Distillation is probably the most widely used separation process in the chemical and allied industries, its applications ranging from the rectification of alcohol, which has been practiced since antiquity, to the fractionation of crude oil.
Only a brief review of the fundamental principles that underlie the design procedures will be given; a fuller discussion can be found in other textbooks; see King (1980), Hengstebeck (1976), Richardson et al. (2002) and Kister (1992).
A good understanding of methods used for correlating vapor-liquid equilibrium data is essential to the understanding of distillation and other equilibrium-staged processes; this subject was covered in Chapter 8.
In recent years, most of the work done to develop reliable design methods for distillation equipment has been carried out by a commercial organization, Fractionation Research Inc., an organization set up with the resources to carry out experimental work on full-size columns. Since this organization's work is of a proprietary nature, it is not published in the open literature, and it has not been possible to refer to its methods in this book.
