Study of a Batch Reactive Rectifier

Consider an ideal ternary mixture subject to an equilibrium-limited chemical reaction . The relative volatilities and the chemical equilibrium constant are taken as , , and . Pure is fed to a reactive rectifier and it is assumed that the reaction takes place only in the still. This Demonstration plots the distillate composition versus time for user-set values of the Damköhler number , the reflux ratio, and the number of nonreactive stages in the rectifier. Compositions of components , , and are plotted in red, green, and blue, respectively. It is clear from the snapshots that when is high, one gets pure , pure , and a minor intermediate fraction, which is rich in component . Thus, it is possible to drive the reaction conversion to very high values to recover the pure products, components and .