Multicomponent extraction: a new method of design

Abstract

A new method for the liquid-liquid extraction design has been developed and applied to quaternary systems. The method is based on the geometrical concepts of the Ponchon and Savarit method for binary systems. A correlation of the solubility surface and the tie line data is required in order to implement the calculation procedure. Both experimental data and UNIQUAC generated data have been used to illustrate the application which has been compared and validated by the commercial design program ChemCad III, using the same thermodynamic model and the same binary parameters. The method has the advantage that it allows the direct design and avoids the iterative calculations to solve the material balances and equilibrium conditions.