(120e) Using the Analysis of the Asymptotic Behaviour of Column Profiles to Define the Overall Distillation Behaviour in Transformed Residue Curves and Column Profiles

Previous work by Hausberger et al. demonstrated the asymptotic behaviour of column profiles as they move towards their respective pinch points. More recent work by Tapp et al. 2004, has demonstrated that column profiles actually follow the trajectory defined by a simple transform of the original residue curve of the system under examination for their entire length. In this paper we examine the linkage between these areas of research in that the eigenvectors used to define the asymptotic behaviour are also shown to define the directions of the boundaries of the transformed triangles. This is a useful result in that the previous work for transform triangle focused on constant volatility systems which have straight line boundaries as for more complex systems, the behaviour become complex. The asymptotic analysis permits the simple determination of the directions of the apexes of the transformed ?triangles?. As this information is generic to all transformed triangles terminating on a given point, this provides a powerful insight in to the behaviour that could be expected of a column operating in that transformed section. The paper also provide some practical applications of this tool.

References:

Tapp, M., Holland, S.T., Hildebrandt, D. and Glasser, D. (2004) Column Profile Maps Part A: Derivation and Interpretation; Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., Vol 43, 2, 364-374.

Hausberger, B., Hildebrandt, D., Glasser, D. Asymptotic Behaviour of Distillation Equations. Presented at Chemeca '99, Newcastle, Australia, 1999