Oil Extraction Simulation

[nrgeng]

I would like to model a phase extraction with COFE. On the outset, I have two questions. Q01: Can any of the units provided in COFE detect phase separations as with water and vegetable oil? The oil will rise to be on top of the water. Q02: Can the property models within COFE detect the different miscibilities of water in oil versus alcohol in oil?

If the answer to one or both questions is no, what would it take to change the answer to the affirmative?

I personally have had good results with all of my VLE simulations. COFE displays stream results for the liquid phase, the vapor phase, and overall. I have not found any examples of LLE in COFE. Does COFE display results for liquid phase 1, liquid phase 2, vapor phase, and overall? Is this done automatically or by the creator's (my) definition?

[jasper]

COFE is the flowsheet simulator, and does not have a problem with any phase equilibrium, whether VLE, VLLE or equilibria that include solids.

The unit operations come from COUSCOUS. There, phase support is less transparent, as unit operations require more knowledge of the phases they are dealing with. There is a VLL separator though (the flash, operated as 3-way flash) which uses the densities of the liquids to determine which liquid goes where.

But the crux of course is in the phase equilibrium calculations. In COCO, those come from TEA. As it stands, TEA does not provide liquid-liquid equilibria.

You can of course use any other CAPE-OPEN compliant thermodynamics with COCO. So if your model is simple enough, e.g. an oil phase and a liquid phase in which the main ingredient of each phase is known and all other compounds can be determined by simple solubilities, you could consider writing your own thermodynamic server for the purpose?

An example of how to set up a property package is available here



(this is a vapor liquid example though)