A chemical plant produces oxygen by liquefying air and separating it into its component

gases by fractional distillation. The purity of the oxygen is a function of the main
condenser temperature and the pressure ratio between the upper and lower columns.
Current operating conditions are temperature (ξ 1)= -220°C and pressure ratio
(ξ 2 )= 1.2. Using the following data find the path of steepest ascent.

Temperature Pressure Ratio Purity

(x1) (x2)
-225 1.1 82.8
-225 1.3 83.5
-215 1.1 84.7
-215 1.3 85.0
-220 1.2 84.1
-220 1.2 84.5
-220 1.2 83.9
-220 1.2 84.3

Answer:

First we create a 22 + 4 center points model in Minitab. After entering the data and
performing the analysis, we get the following results…

Factorial Fit: Purity versus Temperature, Pressure

Estimated Effects and Coefficients for Purity (coded units)

From the review of the P values, we find that Temperature is a highly significant variable,
and Pressure and the T*P interaction is not significant. From a review of the actual ANOVA:

Analysis of Variance for Purity (coded units)

We find that main effects are highly significant and the 2-way interaction and curvature are
not significant. We can decide to do several things at this point:
1. Since the interaction and curvature are not significant, we will leave them out of the
final steepest path equation. We see that the Main Effect term is highly significant, so
we now will either…
2. Create a path of steep ascent that only includes factor Temp, and go in a straight
horizontal path. There is a strong argument for this in that it is a much stronger term
than Pressure. This gives a coded equation of Purity = 84.0 + 0.85A. Or we can…
3. Create a path of steepest ascent with both the Main Effects terms. The argument for
this case is that combined the two give us a fairly high R-sq value, and that the model
itself is statistically significant with both the terms in it. This gives a coded equation
of Purity = 84 + 0.85A + 0.25B.

Continuing with the two-term model, we will use ^y =84 +0 . 85x 1 +0. 25 x 2 as the equation for
steepest ascent. Suppose we use a one degree change in temperature as the basic step size.
Thus, the path of steepest ascent passes through the point (x1=0, x2=0) and has a slope
0.25/0.85. In the coded variables, one degree of temperature is equivalent to a step of
Δx1 = 1/5=0.2. Thus, Δx 2 = (0.25/0.85)0.2=0.059. The path of steepest ascent is:

Coded Variable Natura Variable

s l s
x1 x2 ξ1 ξ2
Origin 0 0 -220 1.2
Δ 0.2 0.059 1 0.0059
Origin + 0.2 0.059 -219 1.2059
Δ
Origin +5 1.0 0.295 -215 1.2295
D
Origin +7 1.40 0.413 -213 1.2413
D