Distillation material balance
ID: distillation-material-balance
Consider a nonreacting two-component mixture processed into just two products, with no losses or unaccounted inventory. Let be feed, distillate, and bottoms amount of substance values in moles, and let be their component-A mole fractions. These are whole-stream compositions; is not automatically the instantaneous equilibrium vapor composition above the pot. Total and component balances giveThe component-B balance follows by subtracting the second equation from the first. Eliminating gives, for ,Nonnegative product amounts require between and . For an original stipulated feed , , , and ,Check the component inventories:The distillate contains a fraction of the original component A, despite its higher mole fraction . This distinction between composition and recovery is useful when deciding how much enriched product to collect. These balances determine neither temperatures, heat input, nor the number of equilibrium stages; they do not prove that the specified products are attainable in a particular fractionating column.
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