THE PRODUCT COMPOSITION REGIONS OF AZEOTROPIC DISTILLATION-COLUMNS .2. SEPARABILITY IN 2-FEED COLUMNS AND ENTRAINER SELECTION

A method to assess the product composition regions for distillation of ternary mixtures in single-feed distillation columns, introduced in the first paper of this series, is generalized to account for the effect of introducing multiple feeds of different trays. The method relies on so-called fixed point curves which are trajectories in the compositions space. These trajectories describe the possible compositions of pinch points in each column section as functions of the energy supplied to a column, i.e., for all conceivable values of the reflux ratio. Pinch point trajectories may be determined analytically or, for ternary mixtures, can be located graphically using residue curve maps. We carry out a mostly graphical analysis, using pinch point trajectories to establish separation feasibility ahead of design calculations. Our analysis also provides information on the minimum entrainer supply for a specified separation and visualizes the phenomenon of the occurrence of a maximium reflux ratio for separation in a column with a separate, extractive agent feed. The analysis is analogous to that for single-feed columns, only the critical pinch trajectories may be those for the extractive column section between the feeds. This analogy suggests the notion of a generalized extractive distillation process, for which new entrainer selection criteria are proposed.