Prediction of Homogeneous Azeotropes with Interval Analysis Techniques Exploiting Topological Considerations

ENRIQUE SALOMONE, HECTOR; ESPINOSA, JOSÉ

INDUSTRIAL & ENGINEERING CHEMICAL RESEARCH

AMER CHEMICAL SOC

Año: 2001 vol. 40 p. 1580 - 1588

0888-5885

In this paper, we present an efficient method for the prediction of homogeneous azeotropes. The method is an adaptation of a former method based on interval analysis techniques. An interval Newton with generalized bisection (IN/GB) technique is used to find all the roots of a set of equations representing the azeotropy condition. The novel contribution is to combine this robust technique with the Zharov-Serafimov topological index theory. By checking the topological consistency, it is possible to avoid the numerical verification of the non-existence and therefore to reduce significantly the total computation time. In addition, a simplified model is selectively used at a first stage of the algorithm for providing good starting points for a second stage, where the full model is used for solution refining. In this way, more computation time is saved without compromising the reliability of the method. As a result, the performance of the method is comparable to the one of the fastest local methods.