Question

A liquid mixture containing ethanol (55.0 wt%) and the balance water enters a separation process unit at a rate of 90.5 kg/s. A technician draws samples of two product streams leaving the separator and analyzes them with a gas chromatograph, obtaining values of 86.2 wt% ethanol (Product Stream 1) and 10.9% ethanol (Product Stream 2). The technician then reads a manometer attached to an orifice meter mounted in the pipe carrying Product Stream 1, converts the reading to volumetric flow rate using a calibration curve, and converts that result to a mass flow rate using the average density of ethanol and water. The result is 54.0 kg/s. Finally, the technician calculates the mass flow rate of the second product stream using a material balance and reports the calculated product stream flow rates and compositions to you. You examine them, do some calculations, and reject them.
(a) Draw and label a flow chart of the separation process.
(b) Carry out the calculations that led you to reject the submitted results and explain how you knew the values were wrong.
(c) List up to five possible reasons for the incorrect results. For each one, briefly state how you might determine whether it was in fact a cause of error and what you might do to correct it if it was.

Answer 1

Answer:

Answer is iven below.

Explanation:

Part c:

.The sampling wasn't done at steady state that the balances need so any accumulation terms zero.

.The volumes of ethyl alcohol and water aren't additive in a very mixture this may cause improve measurements

.Using average density of fermentation alcohol and water in conversions doesn't account for the actual fact that the majority if not all streams don't have an excellent 50:50composition quantitative relation of fermentation alcohol and water

.Effects of temperature ,pressure, and density were treated as negligible.

.The calibration curve used could be an inaccurate reading of the manometer.