Mass Transfer Modeling in a Pulsed Sieve-Plate Liquid-Liquid Extraction Column

In this paper mass transfer in a 1.5 m height pulsed sieve-plate extraction column have been investigated applying “plug flow”, “axial dispersion” and “stage wise backflow” models and the obtained results with experimental data have been compared. The used chemical systems were water-acetone-toluene and water-acetone-normal butyl acetate and mass transfer direction was from organic phase to aqueous phase. In spite of simplicity, the error of plug model is high. For system of butyl-acetate- acetone-water in lower zones of column, concentration variation of solute in axial direction is very fast, therefore the errors of axial dispersion and stage-wise backflow models are high. The error of all models for prediction of concentration profile of solute in continueous phase is more than dispersed phase