MODELING OF LIQUID - LIQUID EXTRACTION COLUMN

Abstract

There is hardly any chemical process, which does not involve separation of liquid mixtures or recovery of valuable components from reaction products. Liquid-liquid extraction processes have been increasingly used with advantage in these operations. The development of sound methods of equipment design has been the present trend. In recent times the approach to data interpretation has undergone a shift towards better modeling of the transport processes yielding new methods of scaleup and design. Liquid extraction modeling demonstrates the performance of the extraction equipment, which includes concentration profile, hold up of dispersed phase along column height, fluid dynamics etc. In the present study, the modeling of a liquid extraction column has been carried out which describes the concentration profile of solute in dispersed phase and continuous phase. In this thesis, an one-dimensional, steady state mathematical model has been developed for the simulation of a Karr reciprocating plate extraction column. The effect of different parameters on the performance of the column has been discussed. The model comprises partial differential equations. To solve the model equations, many input data, physical properties of the system chosen and correlations are taken from the literature. The model equations are solved for steady state conditions by using MATLAB software. The model gives the result of a Karr column for water-toluene-acetone system. The obtained results from the model equations have been validated with the data available in the literature.