03.9 Practice Problems

Composite Systems: Iterating Mass Balances of a Process Flow Diagram (PP3.1) (uakron.edu) You may be surprised by how easy it is to solve all the mass balances of a fairly sophisticated chemical process using the xls "iteration" feature. In about 10 minutes, you can solve an entire project complete with a reactor, distillation columns, and recycle. And if you need to change something like the reactor conversion or column splits, that will take about 3 seconds.
 
Comprehension Question:20kmol/h of propylene with 2kmol/hr of propane is fed with 21kmol/h of Benzene to produce Cumene (isopropylbenzene). Conversion of the propylene is 90%, but the benzene needs to be fed such that the ratio entering the reactor is 6:1 Benzene:propylene. Also 0.1 mol of diisopropylbenzene (DIPB) is produced for every mol of cumene. A flash occurs at 90C and 1.75 bars after the reactor to purge excess propane. A distillation column separates the benzene for recycle with a split of 99.5%. The cumene is recovered in the bottoms at 99%. Compute the flow rates in all the streams.