Modeling and simulation of azeotropic distillation for chloroform (1) + methanol (2) + acetone (3)

Azeotropic distillation is a special case of multicomponent distillation used for separation of binary mixtures which are either difficult or impossible to separate by ordinary fractionation. It is commonly used to separate close boiling mixtures with far fewer trays than in conventional distillation and with less circulation, resulting in lower equipment and energy costs. It is widely used for the dehydration of alcohols and is being applied in new areas of chemical processing because of its efficiency. The work is mainly focus on the separation of azeotropic mixtures. Selection of solvent plays an important role in industry to break the azeotropes in easy way. The solvent is selected in such a way that it should break the azeotropic mixture and also should form azeotropic mixture with one of the original component. Determining the existence of homogeneous azeotropes together with their composition, temperature and pressure is important from both theoretical and practical standpoints in the analysis of phase behavior and in the synthesis and design of separation system employing distillation. Different moles of solvent are added to the existence composition of azeotropic mixtures at constant temperature and pressure. Raoult's law is taken in the modeling to get vapor mixture from given liquid mixture calculated after addition of the solvent to the original azeotropic mixture.