Separation Process Essentials – A New Book and Approach to the Introductory Course

My unique new textbook targets undergraduate chemical engineering students being introduced for the first time to staged separation processes. As the title suggests, the content is limited to the essential skills that can be taught in a one-semester course. For each of the major separation processes (distillation, absorption/stripping, and solvent extraction) students learn to analyze (when design is specified) the process performance by solving the governing equations, and then design (when performance is specified) a process using graphical techniques.

No matter the process, the approach is identical. Each stage is described by a surprisingly limited set of equations that the students learned in the previous year: material and energy balances, phase equilibrium, and usually some process specifications. Students draw a labeled process flow diagram, perform a degree of freedom analysis by comparing the number of unknown variables to the number of appropriate equations, and solve those equations using Excel’s Solver function. It is really that simple! More stages – just more equations for Excel to solve. Students then plot the compositions on a phase equilibrium graph and “discover” for themselves the McCabe-Thiele and Hunter-Nash graphical methods. Each chapter starts with a very brief introduction, but most learning occurs in the plethora of detailed examples, complete with well-formatted Excel solutions (distributed on an open web site “separationprocess.com”).

In this talk/poster, the book and web site will be described in more detail. Several example problems will demonstrate the book’s approach.