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products. Final puriRcation of the ester product is and Simulation; Multicomponent Distillation; Theory of
carried out in a rectiRcation column with only a few Distillation; VapourILiquid Equilibrium: Correlation and
stages. The entrainer is recovered using a one-step Prediction; VapourILiquid Equilibrium: Theory.
liquid}liquid extraction (LLE) column with water as
the extractant. Further Reading
Wuest et al. found they could prepare ethyl chloro-
acetate by addition of ethanol to a melt of chloro- Catalogue of Successful Hazardous Waste Reduction/Re-
acetic acid and p-toluene sulfonic acid and purify the cycling Projects. Energy Pathways Inc. and Pollution
ester product using azeotropic distillation. The ester Probe Foundation (1987) Prepared for Industrial Pro-
grams Branch, Conservation & Protection Environment
and water form a minimum boiling binary azeotrope
Canada, March, p. 84.
and therefore affect the ester/alcohol separation. Guinot H and Clark FW (1938) Azeotropic distillation in
Water and ethyl chloroacetate are removed overhead industry. Transactions of the Institute of Chemical En-
and the product is decanted. In this manner the ester gineers 16: 189}199.
is practically alcohol-free. This process avoids forma- Hills GA, Macrae AR and Poulina RR (1989) Eur. Pat.
tion of the ternary ester/alcohol/water azeotropes Appl. EP383,405, 16 Feb.
which are difRcult to separate. Horsely LH (1973) Azeotropic Data III. Washington DC:
Hills et al. found that azeotropic distillation is American Chemical Society.
useful in the puriRcation of esters produced using an Mato Vazques F, Bonilla Alonso D and Gonzalez Benito
enzymatic route. For example, isopropyl myristate G (1990) PuriRcation of commercial acetic acid esters
can be prepared with lipase or immobilized lipase by azeotropic distillation. Part I. Selection of
azeotropic agents. Quim. Ind. (Madrid) 36(5):
from myristic acid and propane-2-ol. The water pro-
444}449.
duced in the reaction is removed by azeotropic distil- Mato Vazques F, Bonilla Alonso D and Gonzalez Benito
lation. G (1990) Preparation of high-purity esters and recovery
of azeotropic agents. Part II. PuriRcation of commercial
Conclusion acetic acid esters by azeotropic distillation. Quim. Ind.
(Madrid) 36(6): 543}547.
For almost 100 years azeotropic distillation has Ohura H, Uchida Y, Yasaki A and Kishimoto S (1993)
been an essential tool in the separation of puriRca- EP 0 529 413 A2. 13 Mar.
tion of many industrial chemicals. There are distinct Taylor AM and Wheelhouse RW (1992) EP 0 467 531 A1.
advantages to using azeotropic distillation, including 22 Jan.
energy savings, increased recovery and ability to Te C and Shih TT (1989) Development of an azeotropic
separate components contained in close boiling, distillation scheme for puriRcation of tetrahydrofuran.
pinch point and azeotropic mixtures. Azeotropic Fluid Phase Equilibria. 5th International Conference on
Fluid Properties and Phase Equilibria for Chemical Pro-
distillation will undoubtedly remains a viable alterna-
cess Design, 30 Apr}5 May, Vol. 52, pp. 161}168.
tive for simplifying difRcult separations found in in- Banff, Alberta, Canada.
dustry. Wuest W, Leischner H and Esser H (1989) Eur. Pat. Appl.
EP 315,096, 10 May.
See also: I/Distillation. II/Distillation: Energy Manage- Young S (1902) The preparation of absolute alcohol from
ment; High and Low Pressure Distillation; Historical Devel- strong spirit. Journal of the Chemical Society 81:
opment; Instrumentation and Control Systems; Modelling 707}717.
Batch Distillation
M. Barolo, Universita% di Padova, Padova,
Italy shift towards the production of high value-added and
Copyright ^ 2000 Academic Press
low volume speciality chemicals and biochemicals
has been much more marked in the last decade than in
the past. Within Rrms producing specialized chem-
icals and biochemicals, batch distillation is a ubiqui-
Introduction tous method for separating products from process
The interest in batch distillation has been steadily inventories, for recovering components that are used
increasing in the last few years. This is a natural in one of the process steps (like solvents, for
reSection of a change in industrial trends. In fact, the example), and for removing undesired components
996 II / DISTILLATION / Batch Distillation
from an efSuent stream. Examples of industrial ap- With regard to the separation of a binary mixture,
plications of batch distillation include: the recovery of the batch apparatus is run as follows. The pot is
chloroform, butanol, water, organic and inorganic continuously heated, so that a vapour rich in the more
acids from process broths in the pharmaceutical in- volatile component is produced, condensed and col-
dustry; the concentration of acetone from dilute lected in the external receiver. Indicating with xB and
aqueous mixtures and the removal of water from y the instantaneous mole fractions of the more
butyl alcohol in the Rne chemistry industry and the volatile component in the liquid and vapour phases
manufacture of alcoholic beverages from fermented in equilibrium, and with HB the molar amount
mixtures in the food and beverages industry. of boiling liquid remaining in the pot, the
The success of batch distillation as a method of following material balances hold during any small
separation is undoubtedly due to its Sexibility. In time interval:
fact, a single batch column can separate a multicom-
ponent mixture into several product cuts within dHV"!dHB [1]
a single batch but if the separation were carried out
continuously, either a train of columns or a multi- ydHV"!d(HBxB) [2]
pass operation would be required. Also, whenever
completely different mixtures must be processed from where dHV is the molar amount of vapour produced
day to day, the versatility of a batch column is still during the same time interval. Combining [1] and [2],
unexceeded. These attributes are crucial for respon- and integrating from the original feed conditions (HF
ding quickly to a market demand characterized by moles of boiling liquid of mole fraction z) to the
short product lifetimes and severe speciRcation re- present conditions, leads to the so-called Rayleigh
quirements. equation:
xB
HB dxB
Equipment Arrangements and ln " [3]
HF z y!xB
Process Modelling
Eqn [3] can be integrated numerically or graphi-
Simple Distillation
cally. It relates the amount of liquid remaining in the
The simplest batch distillation apparatus is shown pot to the composition of this liquid. The molar
in Figure 1. The operation is known as simple amount HD and average composition xN D of the liquid
distillation or differential distillation. This is the accumulated in the receiver can be determined from
oldest manifestation of distillation itself; it was used the following material balances:
by many ancient cultures as a way of producing
alcoholic beverages, essential oils and perfumes. HF"HB#HD [4]
bi bj ?i,j modelling approaches can be grouped into three main
" [7]
fi fj classes: short-cut modelling, approximate modelling
and rigorous modelling.
where j is an arbitrarily chosen reference component,
fi"HFzi, and i, j is the relative volatility of the ith Short-cut models Short-cut models usually assume
component with respect to the reference one. From that the column dynamic behaviour can be approxi-
mated as a sequence of steady states (pseudo-steady-
state approximation), which in turn is true when the
column and reSux drum hold-ups can be neglected
compared to that of the reboiler. This assumption
allows the short-cut models that have been devised
for the design of continuous columns to be employed
at every time step in the simulation of batch columns.
When binary mixtures are considered, a graphical
representation of the process can be obtained by
means of classical McCabe}Thiele diagrams. For
multicomponent mixtures, a modiRcation of the
Fenske}Underwood}Gilliland design approach is of-
ten employed for simulating the batch column
operation.
The main advantage of these models is their speed
of computation; the main limits are their poor accu-
Figure 2 Simple distillation: fraction of the initial charge re-
racy, and the fact that most of them are limited to
covered after the purification of three different binary feeds from constant relative volatility mixtures. They are
a light impurity. mostly employed in preliminary process design and
998 II / DISTILLATION / Batch Distillation
In the above equations, Hi, HD and HB are the tray, mination of the system and equipment parameters
reSux drum and reboiler hold-ups respectively; xi, j is (like the Murphree tray efRciency, for example) is
the mole fraction of component j in stage i; L, V and done by Rtting some of the modelled proRles to actual
D are the liquid, vapour and distillate molar Sow plant data.
rates (respectively); Ki, j is the vapour/liquid equilib-
rium ratio of component j in stage i; and t is the time.
Other Column Arrangements
Any suitable thermodynamic model can be used for
the representation of the equilibrium ratio; deviations In the attempt to improve the Sexibility of batch
from the ideal tray behaviour can be taken into ac- distillation operation as a whole, a closer look at
count using the Murphree tray efRciency concept. alternative column conRgurations has been under-
Due to possible wide ranges in the relative volatilities taken in the last few years. These different kinds of
and/or large differences in tray and reboiler hold-ups, columns have been known since the 1950s, but
the system of differential equations is frequently stiff. a thorough understanding of their dynamic behaviour
As a starting point for the integration, it is often and features has only recently been achieved.
assumed that the reboiler, reSux drum and all trays In the batch stripper represented in Figure 4A, the
are Rlled with the boiling liquid feed at the beginning feed is charged to the reSux drum, while multiple cuts
of the operation. are withdrawn from the bottom of the column se-
Approximate models provide a fairly accurate de- quentially. In the middle-vessel batch column (Fig-
scription of the column dynamics, and are frequently ure 4B), the feed is charged to an intermediate vessel,
used in process design and process optimization and the product/impurity removal is accomplished
applications. simultaneously from both the top and the bottom
ends. The reboilers of both columns may be consider-
Rigorous models When a still more accurate de- ably smaller than the reboiler of a batch rectiRer.
scription of the process dynamics is needed (for Potential improvements in column productivity,
example, when it is required to model accurately the with respect to conventional batch rectiRers, may be
operation of an existing column), a rigorous model very large when using these alternative conRgura-
should be employed. In this case, almost all of the tions. However, to date it is not possible to provide
previous assumptions are relaxed, which consider- general guidelines for determining a priori the
ably increases the computational load. The deter- best column conRguration for a certain separation.
Figure 4 Sketch of (A) a batch stripper and (B) a middle-vessel batch column.
1000 II / DISTILLATION / Batch Distillation
Column Operation
The operation of a batch rectiRer only will be con-
sidered in here. The most popular operating modes
are: constant reSux ratio (with variable distillate
composition), constant distillate composition (with
variable reSux ratio) and total reSux (no product
take-off). The former two operations are in fact semi-
batch operations; the latter one is truly a batch opera-
tion. Operation at optimal reSux ratio should be
mentioned too, but } since it is often accomplished
through a series of constant reSux ratio sequences
} this operating mode will not be considered here. Figure 5 Binary batch distillation at constant reflux ratio (three-
In the following, the components are numbered ideal-stage column).
in order of decreasing ease of separation (i.e. com-
ponent 1 is the most volatile one, component 2 is the
second most volatile, and component Nc is the least While the distillation is proceeding, the operating
volatile). line shifts down along the diagonal line. The mole
From a practical point of view, regardless of the fraction of the more volatile component in the distil-
operating policy, the operation of a multicomponent late is continuously decreasing, and, at any instant of
column is carried out in three steps: (i) a start-up time, the reboiler composition is determined by step-
phase; (ii) a main cut production phase; and (iii) a ping off N stages along the operating/equilibrium
slop cut removal phase. The last two steps are lines.
repeated sequentially. The following actions If both the top and the bottom purity speciRcations
take place during the start-up phase: the column (xspec
D and xspec
B , respectively) are assigned, the reSux
and receivers are possibly cleaned from the materials ratio should be chosen such that the Rnal amount
processed in the previous batch; cooling of the Hfinal
B of bottom product, as calculated through
condenser is started; steam is fed to the reboiler, eqns [4] and [5] with xB"xspec B and xN D"xspec
D , is the
so that the material to be processed is heated up to same as the amount calculated by means of the
its bubble point and starts to vaporize; as soon as Rayleigh equation:
the overhead vapour has been condensed and has
xspec
Hfinal B dxB
Rlled the reSux drum, liquid is returned to the top ln
B
" [19]
of the column, and the column is run at total reSux; HF z xD!xB
consequently, the column trays are sequentially Rlled
The integral of eqn [19] can be evaluated numer-
with liquid.
ically or graphically. The total amount Qr of energy
The start-up procedure is very general, and goes on
to be supplied at the reboiler is given by:
until either the steady state is approached, or the
lighter product purity speciRcation is reached in the Qr"(r#1)Hfinal [20]
D
reSux drum. The other two phases vary according to
the operating policy employed.
where is the molar latent heat of vaporization of the
mixture, and Hfinal
D is the Rnal amount of distillate
Constant Re]ux Ratio Operation
product collected.
In the case of the separation of a binary mixture, For a multicomponent mixture, after starting up
a short-cut modelling approach is useful in order to the column, the product removal is started at a con-
have a graphical representation of the process. In stant and Rnite reSux ratio, and it continues until the
a McCabe}Thiele diagram, at a given value r"L/D average composition of the accumulated product
of the reSux ratio, the slope of the operating line is (product 1) falls below the speciRcation. At this point
Rxed during the operation (Figure 5). (called the cut-off point), the distillate composition is
II / DISTILLATION / Batch Distillation 1001
neither sufRciently rich in component 1 to allow fur- hold-up drains to the reboiler when the steam supply
ther accumulation of product 1, nor is it sufRciently is stopped. This must be taken into account when
rich in component 2 to allow beginning the with- estimating online the Rnal reboiler composition in
drawal of product 2. Therefore, the distillate stream order to detect the time when the distillation should
is diverted to another tank, and the collection of slop be interrupted.
cut 1 is started. When the concentration of compon- The plot of a typical evolution of the proRles of the
ent 2 in the reSux drum meets the second product’s average product composition, product amount and
speciRcation, the distillate stream is diverted to instantaneous distillate composition for the separ-
a third receiver, and the accumulation of product 2 is ation of a nonazeotropic ternary mixture at constant
initiated. The operation proceeds this way until all reSux ratio is shown in Figure 6. The proRles were
the products but the heaviest have been collected in determined with the approximate model described
the receivers. The heaviest product (product Nc) is previously, and a constant relative volatility mixture
recovered in the reboiler at the end of the operation. was considered.
Therefore, at the end of the operation Nc main cuts The dynamic behaviour of the column is charac-
(products) and at most Nc!1 slop cuts are obtained. terized by a ‘front’ of each component sequentially
The slop cuts need to be reprocessed in subsequent moving from the bottom to the top of the column.
batches. If the column has enough stages, the top trays
It should be noted that, unless this issue has been virtually separate a binary mixture made of the
addressed at the column design stage, the whole tray current most volatile component and its adjacent
Figure 6 Typical evolution of the profiles of the average product composition, product amount and instantaneous distillate composi-
tion for an ideal ternary mixture under constant reflux ratio operation.
1002 II / DISTILLATION / Batch Distillation
component in the scale of relative volatilities. slope of the operating line) is continuously increased
This may prove advantageous for the control of the during the batch in order to keep the distillate com-
operation. position on speciRcation. The operation is interrupted
Operation at constant reSux ratio is the most when either the reboiler composition has reached the
popular in industry, because it is very easy to desired composition, or the reSux ratio is so high that
accomplish. However, some considerations deserve continuing the operation would be uneconomical (or
attention at this point. In order to implement this even impossible, in an actual column).
operating policy practically, a measure of the distil- The determination of the total amount of energy
late and reboiler compositions should be available that needs to be supplied to the still is obtained by the
online, which is not usually the case. Therefore, following equation:
the product composition needs to be inferred from
Hfinal
D
secondary measurements, which should be available Qr" (r#1)dHD [21]
online quickly and at a low cost (like temperature and 0
Sow rates, for example). Also, operating the column
at a constant reboiler duty is often easier than operat- whose integration requires knowing r as a function of
ing it at constant vapour boil-up, as was done in the HD. By combining eqns [4] and [5], with xN D"xspec
D , it
previous numerical example. Finally, it should be is found that:
noted that the column pressure may be decreased
during the batch in order to improve the ease of z!xB
HD"HF [22]
separation of the less volatile components. x !xB
spec
D
xspec xspec
D
dxD B
dxB
Qr"HD "!HB [28]
z y!x z y!x
However, it should also be observed that unavoid- existing batch column. If a good model is available,
able uncertainties in the feed amount, feed composi- then it can be used to Rnd out the optimal operating
tion and column hold-up would act in such a way as policy for the batch, i.e. to determine which are the
to prevent reaching the desired purity speciRcations sequence of reSux ratios during the batch and the
for both products. In order to ensure that the more strategy for reprocessing slop cuts between batches
valuable product is recovered on speciRcation, the that would maximize a prescribed proRt function.
hold-up of the vessel containing this product should A process model can also prove useful for the closed-
be set somewhat smaller than requested theoretically; loop control of the operation. Advanced control
a conventional temperature controller may be cas- strategies employ process models to get online estima-
caded to the reSux drum level controller in order to tions of the product compositions, thus eliminating
adjust the level setpoint online, according to the de- the need to resort to expensive hardware analysers;
sired purity requirements. Another way to reduce more efRcient control laws than the classical propor-
(and even eliminate) the effect of the uncertainties is tional plus integral algorithm can also be developed
using a middle-vessel batch column. if a process model is available. Finally, process
For multicomponent separations, a cycling opera- models can be employed within a training pro-
tion may be employed: the column is operated at total gramme to instruct the plant personnel on how to
reSux until a steady state is approached; distillate is interpret the column dynamics, and its response to
then taken as total draw-off for a short period of process uploads: this may prove useful in improving
time; then, the operation is switched back to total the operator’s conRdence about this unsteady unit
reSux, and the operating cycle is repeated. operation.
Control Systems
See II / DISTILLATION / Instrumentation and Control Systems