JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING OF JAPAN
Online ISSN : 1881-1299
Print ISSN : 0021-9592
CONTINUOUS SEPARATION OF THREE-COMPONENT GAS MIXTURE BY THERMAL DIFFUSION COLUMN
TAKAO KOKUGANKEIJI TETSUKAMASARU SHIMIZU
Author information
JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

1980 Volume 13 Issue 1 Pages 41-48

Details
Abstract

To investigate the separation of a multicomponent mixture by a thermal diffusion column, experiments in the separation of a ternary mixture composed of helium, argon and krypton were performed with batch and continuous draw-off operations. In both operations the lightest component of molecular weight, helium, and the heaviest component, krypton, in the ternary mixture behave respectively as light and heavy components in a binary mixture, but the separation factor of the middle component argon is small and shows a complex relation by interaction from both sides. For batch operation the experimental results were in qualitative agreement with the solutions by Schumacher''s method in which the mean value of self-diffusivity was adopted as diffusion coefficient. Müller''s solution, derived for isotopic mixtures, was used mainly in order to estimate the separation of non-isotopic mixture under continuous draw-off operation. The assumptions in the derivation of Müller''s solution are partially inapplicable to a non-isotopic mixture. But the results calculated from Müller''s solution were in agreement with the experimental results when feed flow rate σF is less than 1 per cent of mean natural flow rate in column Gm. The deviation between 2experimental and calculated results becomes remarkably large at σF>0.1•Gm because of remixing and disturbance by feed of gas mixture.

Content from these authors
© The Society of Chemical Engineers, Japan
Previous article Next article
feedback
Top