This notebook contains course material from CBE20255 by Jeffrey Kantor (jeff at nd.edu); the content is available on Github. The text is released under the CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0 license, and code is released under the MIT license.

# Bubble and Dew Points for Multicomponent Mixtures¶

## Summary¶

This notebook illustrates the use of Raoult's Law and Antoine's equation to compute the bubble and dew points for an ideal solution. The video is used with permission from LearnChemE, a project at the University of Colorado funded by the National Science Foundation and the Shell Corporation.

## Bubble and Dew Point Equations for Ideal Mixtures¶

Initialize the IPython workspace with with default settings for plots.

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import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
%matplotlib inline

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from IPython.display import YouTubeVideo


Bubble and dew point calculations for ideal mixtures are all about solving a fixed set of equations. If we have $N$ chemical species, and refer to the liquid phase mole fractions as $x_1, \ldots, x_N$ and the vapor phase mole fractions as $y_1, \ldots, y_N$, then two of these equations are

$$x_1 + x_2 + \cdots + x_N = 1$$

and

$$y_1 + y_2 + \cdots + y_N = 1$$

The remaining equations come from Raoult's law. For each of the $n = 1, 2, \ldots, N$ species we have an equation

$$y_n P = x_n P_n^{sat}(T)$$

where $P_n^{sat}(T)$ is determined from experimental data or from a correlation such as Antoine's equation. This gives us a total $N+2$ equations.

The unknown variables are the $N$ values of $x_n$, the $N$ values of $y_n$, plus temperature $T$ and pressure $P$ -- a total $2N + 2$ variables. With this as context, we can identify two types of problems.

#### Bubble Point Equations¶

If the composition of the liquid phase is known, then the equilibrium equations can be solved for the unknown vapor phase composition

$$y_n = x_n \frac{P_n^{sat}(T)}{P}$$

Substituting these values into the equation $y_1 + y_2 + \cdots + y_N = 1$ gives an equation.

$$x_1\frac{P_1^{sat}(T)}{P} + \cdots + x_N \frac{P_N^{sat}(T)}{P} - 1 = 0$$

If $P$ is known, then the equilibrium value of $T$ is a root to this equation that can be found using standard root-finding functions in the Python or Matlab libraries.

If $T$ is known, the solution for $P$ is simply

$$P = x_1 P_1^{sat}(T) + x_2 P_2^{sat}(T) + \cdots + x_N P_N^{sat}(T)$$

Once both $T$ and $P$ are known, the vapor phase composition can be computed by substituting those values back into the first equation.

#### Dew Point Equations¶

If the composition of the vapor phase is known, then the equilibrium equations can be solved for the unknown vapor liquid phase composition

$$x_n = y_n \frac{P}{P_n^{sat}(T)}$$

Substituting these values into the equation $x_1 + x_2 + \cdots + x_N = 1$ gives an equation

$$y_1\frac{P}{P_1^{sat}(T)} + \cdots + y_N \frac{P}{P_N^{sat}(T)} - 1 = 0$$

If $P$ is known, then the equilibrium value of $T$ is a root to this equation that can be found using standard root-finding functions in the Python or Matlab libraries.

If $T$ is known, the solution for $P$ is

$$\frac{1}{P} = \frac{y_1}{P_1^{sat}(T)} + \frac{y_2}{P_2^{sat}(T)} + \cdots + \frac{y_N}{P_N^{sat}(T)}$$

Once both $T$ and $P$ are known, the liquid phase composition can be computed by substituting those values back into the first equation.

## Multicomponent Mixtures¶

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Psat = dict()
Psat['acetone'] = lambda T: 10**(7.02447 - 1161.0/(224 + T))
Psat['benzene'] = lambda T: 10**(6.89272 - 1203.531/(219.888 + T))
Psat['ethanol'] = lambda T: 10**(8.04494 - 1554.3/(222.65 + T))
Psat['toluene'] = lambda T: 10**(6.95805 - 1346.773/(219.693 + T))


For the multicomponent case we will use Python dictionaries to store compositions of the liquid phases. Bubble point functions.

Here we use the fsolve function from the scipy.optimize library to return the root of this equation. Note that fsolve returns a list of roots, so the terminal [0] on the expression selects the first root (and presumably only) of the bubble point equation.

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from scipy.optimize import fsolve
def Tbub(species,x):
return fsolve(lambda T : sum([x[s]*Psat[s](T)/P for s in species]) - 1.0,60)[0]

def ybub(species,x):
return {s: x[s]*Psat[s](Tbub(species,x))/P for s in species}


Dew point functions

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def Tdew(species,y):
return fsolve(lambda T : sum([y[s]*P/Psat[s](T) for s in species]) - 1.0,60)[0]

def xdew(species,y):
return {s: y[s]*P/Psat[s](Tdew(species,y)) for s in species}


Demonstration

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species = ['acetone','benzene','toluene']
z = dict()

P = 0.8*760
z['acetone'] = 0.1
z['benzene'] = 0.3
z['toluene'] = 0.6

print("\nBubble Point Calculations")

x = z
T = Tbub(species,x)
y = ybub(species,x)

print("Temperature = {:5.2f} [deg C]".format(T))
print("Pressure  = {:7.2f} [mmHg]".format(P))
print("  Composition    x[s]   y[s]")
for s in species:
print("    {:10s} {:6.3f} {:6.3f}".format(s,x[s],y[s]))

print("\nDew Point Calculations")

y = z
T = Tdew(species,y)
x = xdew(species,y)

print("Temperature = {:5.2f} [deg C]".format(T))
print("Pressure  = {:7.2f} [mmHg]".format(P))
print("  Composition    x[s]   y[s]")
for s in species:
print("    {:10s} {:6.3f} {:6.3f}".format(s,x[s],y[s]))

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