Treffer: Using Visualization and Computation in the Analysis of Separation Processes

For decades, every chemical engineer has been asked to have a background in separations. The required separations course can, however, be uninspiring and superficial because understanding many separation processes involves conventional graphical methods and commercial process simulators. We utilize simple, user-­friendly mathematical software, MATLAB, for both visualization and numerical computation, which can make conventional approaches more enjoyable and effective, and also provide better understanding of more complex problems in the junior-­level separations course at Cornell. We have introduced in-class visualization of the graphical methods in which the effect of design parameters on distillation such as the reflux ratio and stage efficiency can be animated interactively. We have also exploited user-­friendly routines of MATLAB to solve systems of nonlinear equations directly and perform numerical time integration in multicomponent distillation and thermal swing adsorption, respectively. By spending less time on the details of solving problems graphically and by trial-­and-­error, we were able to spend more time discussing the conceptual and quantitative description of processes and incorporate recent trends and design aspects in the separations course.

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