ChE351: Separation Process Principles

Prof. Davis

Course Syllabus

Course Description:

This course covers some of the many, many methods used to separate chemical mixtures, particularly in industrial applications. Separation processes are often the most complicated component of real chemical process design/operation because of the many options and degrees of freedom. We will apply thermodynamic and transport concepts to the design of continuous-contact and staged separation processes and discuss the limitations of mass transfer theory and empiricism in real chemical plant design/operation. The first half of the course will cover:

- Introduction to separation processes (Chapter 1 of Seader, Henley, and Roper)
- Review of thermodynamics of mixtures and modeling chemical properties (Chapter 2)
- Review of diffusivity, Fick's law of diffusion, mass transfer mechanisms, and calculation of mass transfer coefficients (Chapter 3)
- Absorption and stripping of dilute mixtures, with an emphasis on graphical methods of solution (Chapter 6) - also extending this knowledge to multicomponent mixtures
- Binary distillation (Chapter 7)
- Creating trayed and packed column designs based on empirical data (Chapter 7)

The second half of the course will cover:

- Equilibrium-based models for industrially relevant membrane separations (Chapter 14)
- Equilibrium-based models, mass transfer, and surface chemistry of adsorption, ion exchange, and chromatography (Chapter 15)

Example Student Projects:

Example 1
Example 2