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Visualizing the
McCabe-Thiele Diagram
Paul M. Mathias Use this spreadsheet-based visualization
Fluor Corp.
and interactive analysis of the
McCabe-Thiele diagram to understand the
foundations of distillation engineering.
M
ore than 80 years ago, McCabe and Thiele such as composition pinches and unforgiving composition
developed a creative graphical solution tech- profiles (i.e., a steep peak in the composition profile of one
nique based on Lewiss assumption of constant or more components in multicomponent distillation)
molal overflow (CMO) for the rational design of distilla- until they are converged. For these reasons, textbooks on
tion columns (1). The McCabe-Thiele diagram enabled staged separations stress the visual approach and present
decades of effective design and operational analysis of the McCabe-Thiele diagram as an essential tool for under-
distillation columns, and has been used to teach several standing and analyzing cascaded operations. Experienced
generations of chemical engineers to design and trouble- process engineers often use McCabe-Thiele diagrams to
shoot distillation and other cascaded processes. understand or help debug simulation results (3). Yet some
Simplified methods such as McCabe-Thiele are rarely consider graphical techniques tools of the past, and as a
used today for detailed design. Modern tools are based result, the distillation column has become a black box and
on rigorous solution of the equations governing cascaded engineers understanding of distillation has suffered (4).
separations, and properly deal with multicomponent sys- Even though the construction of McCabe-Thiele dia-
tems, heat effects, chemical reactions and mass-transfer grams is straightforward, it is a tedious and error-prone
limitations (2). Commercially available software enables process. Hence, engineers rarely study the large number
simulation of entire chemical plants for the purposes of of cases needed to understand the interactions of the many
design, optimization and control but it is important process variables. This article introduces a spreadsheet-based
to ensure the discriminating and competent use of these approach that readily produces McCabe-Thiele diagrams for
sophisticated tools. The McCabe-Thiele visual approach binary systems so that the interacting effect of process vari-
provides a powerful way to attain this judgment and ables can be visualized easily and interactively; the Excel file
competency. is provided as a supplement to the online version of this arti-
Software applications based on rigorous calculations cle (www.aiche.org/cep). Because it is based on the widely
do not explain how distillation really works and how the available Excel software and uses standard techniques, this
numerous process variables interact to yield a distilla- method is a useful advance over existing software tools that
tion column that is energy efficient, stable, and produces enable visualization of the McCabe-Thiele diagram.
products with the desired purities. If the design engi- Excel spreadsheets are increasingly used in chemical
neer specifies an impossible set of inputs, even the best engineering education and industrial practice (5). This
commercial software either crashes or returns vague and article demonstrates how Excel may be used for chemical
unhelpful messages (e.g., Tray j dried up). Engineers engineering computation and visualization. Through the
who have only performed simulations resort to arbitrary example presented in the sidebar, the article also demon-
and frantic changes in input variables to obtain a simula- strates how the McCabe-Thiele method, and, in particular,
tion with a feasible specification. In addition, rigorous, the spreadsheet application introduced here, answers typi-
computerized calculations do not reveal design problems cal design questions.
2. The q-line is constructed by drawing a straight line Eq. 4 is be applied, the use of Murphree efficiencies requires
from (xF, xF) with a slope equal to q/(q 1). a modification in the way that the liquid mole fraction is
3. The stripping-section operating line is the straight calculated from the vapor mole fraction.
line from (xB, xB) to the intersection of the rectifying- It is useful to estimate heat effects consistent with the
section operating line and the q-line. CMO approximation. Here, it is assumed that sensible
The function Interp is useful in implementing the heat effects and heats of mixing are negligible and that
operating lines and the q-lines even though all three are heat duties are only associated with evaporating and con-
straight lines. For the purpose of calculating equilibrium densing binary mixtures based on their (fixed) enthalp-
compositions, x-y data have been entered as a table with ies of vaporization. The condenser duty, QC, is the heat
101 points (x_Data, y_Data). This spacing of data points removal rate required to condense a vapor with flowrate V
is expected to be adequate for accurate interpolation of and composition xD:
the acetone-ethanol x-y diagram. For another system with
an x-y diagram that has a more complex shape, more data vap vap
points in the table may be needed. - Q C = V 6 x D DH 1 + (1 - x D) DH 2 @ ^5 h
The McCabe-Thiele diagram is constructed by stepping
off stages. The starting point is (xD, xD), which is the vapor The CMO approximation implies that the sum of the
composition ascending from tray 1. The liquid composition condenser and reboiler duties is zero for a saturated-liquid
descending from tray 1 is the mole fraction in equilibrium feed (q = 1). The heat duty required to change the thermal
with a vapor with composition xD, which is obtained using state of the feed from the saturated-liquid state is:
the function Interp: x1 = Interp (xD, x_Data, y_Data, 0).
Next, the vapor composition rising from tray 2 is calculated vap vap
from the rectifying-section operating line (or component- Q F = F (1 - q) 6 x F DH 1 + (1 - x F) DH 2 @ ^6 h
balance equation), again using Interp. The stepping off
of stages continues over the entire column, switching to The reboiler duty (QR) is calculated from QC and QF:
the stripping-section operating line at the feed tray. In this
way, the entire McCabe-Thiele diagram can be computed
and graphically represented using standard Excel charting QR = QC - QF ^7 h
capability.
Standard Excel what-if analysis capability can be used
to evaluate design results. For example, Goal Seek or Evaluating binary separations
Solver may be used to calculate the reflux ratio to obtain A spreadsheet is used to analyze the separation of the
the liquid composition (xB) descending from tray 10. acetone-ethanol mixture and other binary mixtures using
(Solver seems to converge more reliably and accurately the McCabe-Thiele approach.
than Goal Seek.) The McCabe-Thiele diagram is constructed by inter-
As was first suggested by Murphree, the McCabe- polation of x-y data. These data may be obtained from
Thiele procedure may be made more realistic by relax- a variety of sources, such as standard thermodynamic
ing the approximation that vapor-liquid equilibrium models or commercial process-simulation software. The
is achieved on each stage. The Murphrey efficiency is advantage of this approach is that the source may be
defined as: sophisticated models and databases that are difficult and
time-consuming to program in Excel. However, x-y data
may not always be available for the system of interest, so
x j - x j-1 the use of Excel for regression of phase-equilibrium data
E ML = ^4 h
x *j - x j - 1 to generate the x-y data is demonstrated here.
VLE data for the acetone-ethanol system at 50C,
In Eq. 4, xj* is the liquid mole fraction that is in equi- 71C and 80C (6, 7) have been used to regress the
librium with the vapor ascending from tray j and xj is the parameters of the NRTL activity-coefficient model.
actual mole fraction of the liquid descending from tray j. Since the pressure is low (about 2 bar or less), pressure
As the efficiency EML decreases to values less than unity, effects on the liquid fugacity may be neglected and the
the decrease in liquid mole fraction from the distillate to the vapor phase can be treated as an ideal gas. Thus, the total
bottom will be reduced. The concept of Murphree efficiency pressure of the binary mixture is given by Eq. 8, and the
is equally applicable to the vapor or liquid phase, and here vapor composition for the specified liquid composition
it is convenient to apply it to the liquid phase. Note that if may be calculated from Eq. 9:
1
Design Specifications Calculated
0.9 1
XD xF 0.5 Feed Stage 5 xB Stage 10 0.0300
y = Mole Fraction of Acetone in Vapor
2
0.8 q 0.8 xD 0.90 QC, GJ/h 4.984
3
EML 1.00 xB 0.03 QR, GJ/h 4.299
0.7
Reflux Ratio 2.025
0.6 4 xB-error 8.9 E23
0.5 1
x = Mole Fraction of
3
from rigorous calculation 0.8
Reflux Ratio
Acetone in Liquid
2.8 0.7
Rigorous
2.6 0.6
2.4 0.5
2.2 0.4
2 McCabe-Thiele McCabe-Thiele
0.3
1.8 0.2 Rigorous
1.6 0.1
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0
q = Thermal Quality of Feed 0 2 4 6 8 10
Tray Number
S Figure 4. The required reflux ratio is a function of the thermal quality
of the feed. S Figure 6. The liquid composition profiles obtained using the McCabe-
Thiele techinique and rigorous calculations are similar.
6
Reboiler Duty, GJ/h
5 200
4 Rigorous Vapor
175
3
Flow, kmol/h
2 McCabe-Thiele 150
Error bars show 15%
1 variance from rigorous calculation 125 Liquid
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 100 Rigorous: Solid lines
q = Thermal Quality of Feed McCabe-Thiele: Dashed lines
75
0 2 4 6 8 10
S Figure 5. The reboiler duty is a function of the thermal quality Tray Number
of the feed.
S Figure 7. There is poor agreement between the Lewis approximations
heat and heat of mixing), and hence provides a way to and rigorous calculations for the column flow profiles.
estimate the errors caused by the approximations.
Figures 4 and 5 indicate that the Lewis approxima- 9
Reboiler Duty, GJ/h
1
the sidebar on p. 39 (The Role of the McCabe-Thiele Bottom
1
0.9 2
Method in Distillation Engineering), the McCabe-Thiele 0.8
Operating 3
diagram, without the CMO approximation, has excellent Line 4
0.7
present-day value as a design and troubleshooting tool. 0.6 5
Top
0.5 11 6 Operating
Effect of feed location 0.4 10 7 Line
0.3 8
Figure 8 shows the effect of nonoptimum feed 9 Feed Line
0.2
tray location on the required reboiler duty. Note that a 0.1
severely nonoptimum feed location (e.g., tray 9 vs. tray 0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
6) will require the reboiler duty to be doubled in order
x = Mole Fraction of Acetone in Liquid
to achieve the target separation. Figure 9 illustrates the
pinch point that occurs when the feed point is too low.
S Figure 9. A pinch point occurs when a feed point is too low, such as
Figure 10 provides further illustration of the pinch point, tray 9 rather than the optimum tray 6.
showing that the liquid mole fraction reaches an asymp-
1
0.9 Table 2. The Murphree efficiency (EML) affects the reflux
x = Mole Fraction of
0.7
0.6 xF = 0.5, xD = 0.9, xB = 0.03, q = 1.0
0.5
0.4 EML Reflux Ratio Optimum Tray QR, GJ/h
McCabe-Thiele
0.3 1.00 1.89 6 4.07
0.2 Rigorous
0.1 0.95 2.10 6 4.42
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 0.90 2.41 6 4.93
Tray Number 0.85 2.88 6 5.71
0.80 3.70 6 7.05
S Figure 10. When the feed point is too low (tray 9 rather than the opti-
0.75 5.38 6 9.83
mum tray 6), the liquid composition reaches an asymptotic value.
0.74 5.95 6 10.8
totic value of about 0.09 at tray 9, and the addition of 0.73 6.68 6 12.0
more stages above the feed will have no effect on improv- 0.72 7.57 5 13.4
ing product purities. 0.71 8.81 5 15.5
The Excel file can be used to further study the analogous
0.70 10.6 5 18.4
detrimental effect that occurs if the feed point is too high.
0.69 13.3 5 22.9
Effect of reduced tray efciency 0.68 18.2 5 30.9
It is usually recommended that the sectional column 0.67 28.8 5 48.1
efficiency be defined as the ratio of the theoretical num-
ber of stages to the actual number of stages to achieve 20
a particular separation (8). Since efficiencies vary from
15
one section to another, it is best to apply the efficiency
Reflux Ratio
Figure 11 show that the required reflux ratio and the resulting 0
reboiler duty increase substantially as EML decreases below 0.65 0.70 0.75 0.80 0.85 0.90 0.95 1.00
unity. Note also that the optimum feed location changes as Efficiency
efficiency changes, although the results are insensitive to the
S Figure 11. The Murphree efficiency (EML) substantially decreases with a
feed location when the reflux ratio is high. higher reflux ratio.
Figure 12 presents the McCabe-Thiele diagram for the
case where EML = 0.7. The reduced Murphree efficiency captures trends, and thus serves as an aid to understand the
effectively reduces the relative volatility, which makes the fundamentals of distillation engineering. But CMO does
separation more difficult, requiring a higher reflux ratio. In not yield reliably accurate results, and is not recommended
fact, the desired separation is barely possible for EML = 0.67, for detailed design calculations, especially since software
and further reduction in the efficiency will make the desired employing rigorous methods is widely available.
separation impossible, even at total reflux. b. The number of stages needed at total reflux is
It should be emphasized that the Murphree efficiency between six and seven. Thus, the available 10-stage col-
is only a crude description of the performance of real umn is likely to be adequate for the desired separation.
trays, and hence the effect of varying EML should be c. The reflux ratio needed for the specified separation
interpreted with caution. The effects shown here are only is 2.0. The reflux ratio decreases with increasing q, and the
qualitatively applicable, but useful to illustrate the effects required heat duty decreases as q increases. Therefore, it is
of reduced tray efficiency. preferable to operate the column at high values of q.
d. The existing feed location (tray 5) is only slightly
Solution to the acetone-ethanol example problem suboptimal, with a required reflux ratio of 2.0, compared
a. Constant molal overflow is a reasonably good with 1.9 if the feed location is lowered to tray 6. Figure 8
approximation even for this case, where the enthalpy of shows the negative effects that will occur for a poorly
vaporization of ethanol is 32% higher than that of acetone. located feed stage.
The CMO approximation is especially useful because it e. The separation becomes far more difficult as EML
1
1
0.9 Bottom 2
Operating
3 Nomenclature
0.8 4
0.7 Line
0.6 5 A12, A21, B12, B21 = temperature-dependence
0.5 6 Top parameters in NRTL model
0.4 11 Operating (Eq. 12)
7 Line
0.3 10
B = bottom flowrate, kmol/h
Feed Line
0.2 8 D = distillate flowrate, kmol/h
9 EML = Murphree efficiency, applied to
0.1
0 the liquid compositions (Eq. 4)
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 GE = excess Gibbs energy (Eq. 10)
x = Mole Fraction of Acetone in Liquid G12, G21 = terms in NRTL model
(Eqs. 10 and 11)
S Figure 12. The effective equilibrium curve (green) at the reduced = enthalpy of vaporization of
efficiency of EML = 0.7 on the McCabe-Thiele diagram reveals that the H1vap, H2vap
components 1 and 2, kJ/mol
required reflux ratio increases from 1.89 (EML = 1.0, optimum feed
L = liquid flowrate in rectifying
location) to 10.6.
section, kmol/h
L = liquid flowrate in stripping
decreases below unity (Figure 11). Note also that low section, kmol/h
values of EML may cause pinch points that do not exist at P = pressure, kPa
higher efficiencies. sat, sat = vapor pressures of components
P1 P2
1 and 2, kPa
Other binary separations q = liquid fraction or thermal state
of the feed; q = 1 corresponds to
Other binary systems may easily be studied by replac- saturated liquid
ing the x-y table used here for the acetone-ethanol binary Q = heat rate, GJ/h
mixture. The Excel file supplied online provides two R = gas constant
additional examples of x-y diagrams for binary systems. R = reflux ratio
The first example is representative of the benzene- T = temperature, K
toluene system and assumes constant relative volatility, : V = vapor flowrate in rectifying
section, kmol/h
V = vapor flowrate in
stripping section, kmol/h
y/x
a/ ^13h x = liquid mole fraction (of the more-
(1 - y) / (1 - x) volatile component)
x* = liquid composition in equilibrium
with y (Eq. 4)
xa y = vapor mole fraction (of the more-
y= ^14h volatile component)
1 + (a - 1) x
Greek Letters
The value of the simple constant- system is that the = nonrandomness parameter in
effects of close-boiling and wide-boiling systems may NRTL model (Eq. 11)
easily be studied. Detailed study of this system is left as = relative volatility (Eq. 13)
an exercise for the reader. 1, 2 = activity coefficients of
In the second example, x-y data from an external components 1 and 2
= interaction-energy parameter in
source are used x-y data for the ethanol-water binary
NRTL model (Eq. 10)
system at 1 atm from the Aspen Plus process simulator.
The McCabe-Thiele diagram indicates that (1) a reflux Subscripts
ratio of 5.4 is required for the target separation, and (2) 1, 2 = components 1 and 2
the optimum feed tray is low in the column because the B = bottom
separation is very difficult at high ethanol concentrations C = condenser
due to the formation of an azeotrope (at x 0.9). Hence, D = distillate
F = feed
more stages are needed above the feed stage. The reader
j = stage number
is urged to perform another calculation by increasing xD R = reboiler
slightly, from 0.83 to 0.84 (leaving xB unchanged at 0.01).
The required reflux ratio almost doubles (to 10.2), which