Question: A process engineer aims to purify a feedstock containing 9 0 wt % active component ( A ) and 1 0 wt % of impurity

A process engineer aims to purify a feedstock containing 90 wt% active component (A) and 10 wt%
of impurity (I). A preliminary separator is able to purify the feed to 97 wt%. They build a new
purification device capable of generating a product stream containing 80% of the active substance
A from its input stream and 30% of the impurities from its input stream. An effluent stream out
of the purifier carries the rest of A and impurities. They set up the purification process as shown
in Figure 2. The stream out of the separator is split equally (in terms of mass flowrate) into two
channels. The first channel is sent directly to the purifier while the second stream is mixed with
a recycle stream consisting of half the purifiers product stream. Both purifier I and purifier II are
similar units. Assuming a basis of 100 kg/hr of feedstock and steady state,
(a) Develop a stream table and fill it with known flow rates and compositions
(b) Find the flowrate of streams leaving the initial separator and the amounts of A and I in it.
(c) Calculate the flowrates of streams entering and leaving purifier I.
(d) Calculate the flowrates of streams entering and leaving purifier II.
(e) How does using a recycle stream affect the purity and recovery of component A.

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