11.4-7. Enriching Tower for Benzene Toluene.

An enriching tower is fed 100 / of a saturated

vapor feed containing 40 mol % benzene (A) and 60 mol % (B) at 101.32 kPa abs. The distillate is to contain
90 mol % benzene. The reflux ratio is set at 4.0:1.0. Calculate the / distillate and bottoms
and their compositions. Also, calculate the number of theoretical plates required.

Given and Sketch:

A Benzene B Toluene

=?
= 4.0: 1.0 , = 0.90
, = 0.10

101.32

Saturated Vapor
=?
= 100
, = ?
, = 0.40 , =?
, = 0.60

Required:
kg mol/h distillate, , kg mol/h bottoms and its compositions
number of theoretical trays,

To obtain the values of the molar flowrates of distillates and bottoms, material balances are done over the
distillation column.
Overall Mole Balance

= + Equation 1

Equation 2
100 = +

Component A Balance

, = , + , Equation 3

Equation 4
(0.40)100 = (0.90) + (, )

For the enriching operating line, using Eq. 11.4-8 of Transport Processes and Separation Process
(Geankoplis, 2003),
Equation 5
+1 = +
+1 +1

Substituting R=4.0 4.0 0.90 Equation 6

+1 = +
4.0 + 1 4.0 + 1

For the equation of q-line, using Equation 11.4-19 of Unit Operations by Geankoplis,

Equation 7
=
1 1

( 1) = Equation 8

Since q is defined as,

1 Equation 9
=

If the feed enters as a saturation vapor, the numerator of Equation 9 is 0, thus, = 0 (Geankoplis, 2003).
Substituting this to Equation 8 yields,

(0 1) = (0) 0.40 Equation 10

= 0.50 Equation 11

Looking at the plot in Figure 1, the q-line and the enriching line intersects at = 0.271 thus, , = 0.271.
 Solving Eq. 1 and Eq. 4 simultaneously,
= 20.5087 /
= 79.4913 /

Benzene (A) - Toluene (B)

1

0.9

0.8

0.7

0.6

0.5
yA

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
xA
Answer:
Figure 1. Equilibrium Diagram for Benzene (A) Toluene (B) System at 1 atm

From Figure 1, the number of theoretical steps is 4.71.