Chemical Engineering Calculations in Microsoft Excel: The Maximum Likelihood Principle

The Maximum Likelihood (MLH) Principle  is a powerful statistical tool which can be easily employed in Microsoft Excel without the need for Visual Basic programming. In chemical engineering applications, the MLH Principle can be used in Excel  to reconcile mass balances, find faulty instrumentation and analyzers, physical property modeling, and regression of phase equilibrium data. This paper will focus on the use of the MLH Principle for closure of and gross error detection in process unit mass balances.