2013-2014

College of Engineering



Chemical Engineering
Department

CHE 406 - Computational Techniques I n Chemical
Engineering
Term Project - No. 1


SOLVING A SYSTEM OF LINEAR EQUATIONS

MULTI-STAGE LIQUID-LIQUID EXTRACTION

Semester 2 Spring 2014

PROJECT # 1
A TYPICAL CHEMICAL ENGINEERING PROBLEM

Studying the Liquid-Liquid Multi-Stage Extraction Operation

Description of the problem
A liquid/Liquid multiple-stage extraction process is schematized by the figure below. Liquid-1
containing X
in
fraction of a component A, enters through stage-1 at W (kg/h.) while a solvent
containing Y
in
fraction of component A, enters through the final stage at S (kg/h.). Component A is
thus, extracted from liquid-1 by counter-current contact with liquid-2 through the successive stages
until a targeted %yield of A has been achieved.
For any (i-th) stage, the exit streams (Xi and Yi respectively) are assumed to reach equilibrium in
terms of component A; i.e. Xi and Yi are proportional with a constant of proportionality (K).
The main parameters of the problem at hand are : (i) the final concentrations of the two liquids
(X
N
) and (Y
1
), and (ii) the number of stages (N) leading to these concentrations.

Fundamental formulation
The first task will be to do a bibliography search related to the situation and layout all applicable
mass balance equations; in particular, you should apply these relationships for the following cases :
1. 1 single stage operation
2. 2 stages operation
3. A multiple-stages operation

i-th
Stage

W,
X
in

Stage
1
Stage
2
Stage
N-1
Stage
N
Y
1

X
1

Y
2

X
2

Y
1

X
i-1

Y
i

X
i

Y
i+1

X
N-2

Y
N-1

X
N-1

Y
N

S,
Y
in

X
N

Semester 2 Spring 2014

Hand Calculations (use of Matlab as a calculator !)
1. 1-stage operation
a. Compute the exit concentration X1 for the given data; has the yield of 99% of A been
achieved or not ?
b. What feed ratio (W/S) is required to insure 99% yield ? Comment ?
2. 2-stages opertaion
a. Identify known and unknown parameters
b. Layout applicable relationships
c. Solve for the unknowns
Multi-Stage operation (Writing a Matlab program)
1. Re-write the mass balance equations for 1-stage, 2-stage, i-th stage, (N-1)th stage, and the
final stage ?
2. Obtain a system of equations with unknowns X1, X2, ., XN ?
3. Give this system in a matrix form M * X = B:
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=
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\
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N
N
i
N
N
i
B
B
B
B
B
X
X
X
X
X
a c
b a c
b a
b a c
b a
1
2
1
1
2
1
0 0 0
0
0
0 0 c 0
0
0 0
0 0

The parameters a, b, c, Bi should be defined !
4. Write a Matlab program that computes the X concentration for a given set of data :
S=1000kg/h; W=2000kg/h.; Xin=0.05; Yin=0.0; K=10; and N=10stages.