Distillation Lines for a Mixture of Chloroform, Acetone, and Methanol at 1 atm

Consider a ternary mixture composed of chloroform, acetone, and methanol at 1 atm. This Demonstration plots the (blue) distillation line that corresponds to the composition profiles in a staged column at infinite reflux. You can drag the locator to change the position of this curve. This curve is found by solving the following equation:

y

n+1,i

=

x

n,i

where

x

n,i

is the liquid mole fraction of component

i

at stage

n

and

y

n+1,i

is the vapor mole fraction of component

i

at stage

n+1

.

The azeotropes (labeled in the figure by

A

i

for

i

from 1 to 4) and pure components appear as the fixed points of

y

n,i

. It turns out that it is equivalent to finding the fixed points of equation (1) and the singular points of

d

x

i

dξ

=

x

i

-

y

i

,

which gives the residue curves or the composition profile in a packed column at infinite reflux.