Graduation Year

2007

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Ph.D.

Degree Granting Department

Chemical Engineering

Major Professor

Aydin K. Sunol, Ph.D.

Keywords

Automatic differentiation, Homotopy continuation, Critical point, Phase stability, Mathematical modeling

Abstract

A computational tool that uses an automated and reliable procedure for systematic generation of global phase equilibrium diagram (GPED) is developed for binary system using equation of state and its extension to the ternary system is discussed. The proposed algorithm can handle solid phase and also can predict all major six types of phase diagrams. The procedure enables automatic generation of GPED which incorporates calculations of all important landmarks such as critical endpoints, quadruple point (if any), critical line, liquid-liquid-vapor line (if any), solid-liquid-liquid line (if any) and solid-liquid-vapor line. The method is also capable of locating all azeotropic phenomena such as azeotropic endpoint, critical azeotrope, pure azeotropic point and azeotropic lines. Although, we demonstrated the methodology for cubic equation of state, the proposed strategy is completely general that doesn't require any knowledge about the type of phase diagram and can be applied to any pressure explicit equation of state model. Newton homotopy based global method has been applied for phase stability test and critical point calculations to ensure reliability. Having computed the binary phase diagrams, the methodology to generate global phase diagrams for ternary system is discussed that can locate all important thermodynamic landmarks such as tricritical point, quadruple critical endpoint, quadruple azeotropic endpoint, quintuple point and critical azeotropic endpoint. The procedure to trace ternary phenomena having two degree of freedom such as critical surface, solid-liquid-vapor surface and liquid-liquid-vapor surface has been discussed. Finally, applications of reliable global methods to solve the fluid-fluid phase equilibrium problem using SAFT equation for binary system and the solid-fluid phase equilibrium problem for binary and ternary systems have been demonstrated through representative computations.

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