HUMG

ECH 158B
Separations and Unit Operations

Ahmet Palazoglu HOMEWORK 2 _______ June 2019

PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR OWN WORK. IF TWO HOMEWORKS ARE THE SAME, IT
WILL BE CONSIDERED AS CHEATING.

1. (25 pts) Use the attached pump charts to choose a pump for a water delivery system. The
nominal flow rate is 175 GPM. The required total dynamic head (hw) is calculated to be 80 ft.
Calculate the specific speed and report the target impeller diameter. Report all relevant
properties of your chosen pump such as efficiency, impeller size, BHP, and NPSH required.
Discuss the reasons behind your choice.
2. (25 pts) A recycle stream contains 6000 lb/hr of a 55 mol% ethane (MW = 30) and 45 mol%
methane (MW = 16) mixture that was initially at 75°F and 1.37 bar. A compressor is to be
designed that will compress this mixture to 3 bar to feed it to the reactor. Using the table of
compressors provided in the attachments, select an appropriate M model compressor for this
application, and report the number of compression stages needed, the speed at which the
compressor is to be run, and the power requirement. Comment on if intercooling is needed and
why (or why not). You may assume that the gas behaves as an ideal gas mixture. Take γ = 1.4.
3. (25 pts) A crude oil stream is to be heated by heat exchange with the bottom product of a
distillation column. The flow rates of the crude oil and the product stream are 150,000 kg/h and
130,000 kg/h, respectively. While the crude is to be heated from 20 to 600C, the product stream
is cooled from 150 to 1080C. We want to evaluate the potential of an existing 1-2 shell-and-
tube heat-exchanger with 324 ¾ in OD BWG 14 tubes that are 12 ft long, arranged on a 1 in
square pitch. The shell diameter is 23 ¼ and the baffles have a 25% cut and a spacing of 9 in.
Thermal conductivity of steel can be taken as 50 W/m 0C. Would this exchanger be suitable?
The stream properties are given below:
Product Crude
cp, J/g 0C 2.20 1.99
µ, cP 5.2 2.9
ρ, kg/m3 867 825
k, W/m 0C 0.119 0.137
4. (25 pts) A distillation column is fed 500 kmol/h of an equimolar mixture of pentane and hexane.
The feed is at its bubble-point (q=1) and 1 atm. The design goal is to have 95 mole% purity of
pentane in the distillate product. We also wish to recover 95 mole% of pentane in the distillate
product. (a) What are the distillate and bottoms flow rates? (b) What are the molar fractions of
the components in distillate and bottoms streams? (c) Using an equilibrium diagram (can be
obtained from Aspen Plus), determine graphically the minimum number of equilibrium stages
and the minimum reflux ratio. (d) If the reflux ratio is specified as twice the minimum reflux,
how many ideal equilibrium stages are required?

(DUE 6/20/19)