Absorption of Acetone in Air Using Water

Gas absorption is a very ubiquitous unit operation in any chemical plant. It has in common with liquid-liquid extraction that there are two carrier streams and one solute to be partioned between them. Here, we use the McCabe and Thiele graphical method to study the separation of acetone from air. In fact, we use water to absorb acetone from air. The sliders allow the user to select the initial amount of acetone in air and the percent recovery of acetone (i.e. how much acetone will be extracted from air using water). The minimum L/G ratio is determined and we select for the operating line's slope a ratio L/G=1.25*(L/G)min. Stages are stepped off using the equilibrium curve (red curve) and the operating line (blue line) alternatively until the recovery specification is reached. The number of equilibrium stages is displayed.

Equilibrium data were obtained from Henley and Seader [1].

Reference:

[1] Henley E. J. and J. D. Seader, Equilibrium-Stage Separation Operations in Chemical Engineering, Wiley, New York, 1981.

For a similar treatment using Mathematica 6.0, please visit:

http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/AbsorptionOfAcetoneInAirUsingWater/