The New Jersey Institute of Technology's
Electronic Theses & Dissertations Project

Title:	The countercurrent multistage desorption of the acetic acid/water solution with an inert vapor
Author:	Danko, Michael John
View Online:	njit-etd1978-007 (87 pages ~ 2.3 MB pdf)
Department:	Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry
Degree:	Master of Science
Program:	Chemical Engineering
Document Type:	Thesis
Advisory Committee:	McCormick, John E. (Committee chair) Abd-El-Bary, Mahmoud F. (Committee member) Roche, Edward Charles, Jr. (Committee member)
Date:	1978-05
Keywords:	Acetic acid Thermal desorption
Availability:	Unrestricted
Abstract:	The desorption of a acetic acid and water solution with an inert gas was experimentally investigated using a perforated plate distillation column having 17 actual trays. An inert air stream flowing countercurrent was used to strip the water from the acetic acid and water solution. The feed composition was 0.2509 mole fraction acetic acid. The experimental results showed the best obtainable separation to be 0.16118 and 0.3965 mole fraction acetic acid in the overhead condensate and bottoms respectively, at an average column operating temperature of 56.0 degrees centigrade. The concentration of acetic acid predicted by calculation is 0.003917 and 0.9860 mole fraction in the overhead condensate and bottoms respectively, at an average column operating temperature of 108.9 degrees centigrade. It was found that inadequate temperature inhibited the activity of the system, limiting the amount of heat available as Heat of Vapor-ization, and therefore caused much larger amount of water to remain in solution than calculations indicate. This insufficient heat produced results less promising than those obtained by mathematical simulation.