IWNET12
IWNET12
Nonequilibrium thermodynamics in Oil distillation
Paulina Burgos Madrigal1, Mariano López de Haro2
1 Energy Engineering Graduate Program and Energy Research Center, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de
México (Mexico)
2 Energy Research Center, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (Mexico)
Abstract
A nonequilibrium model for oil distillation in an adiabatic packed column is developed in this paper. The
nonequilibrium model includes the calculation of the rates of mass and heat transfer between vapour and liquid
phases, entropy producction in a tray, entropy production by component and total entropy production rate.
The necessary data of the oil mixture have been obtained at the Mexican Petroleum Insitute. This oil mixture
and the adiabatic column were chosen because the unit operation of oil distillation is ine cient in the industry
and using a nonequilibrium model will hopefully allow us to get more information of the system than what
one obtains from the conventional thermodynamics analysis. For instance, such an analysis accounts for the
performance of the column quite well. In addition, to our knowledge oil distillation has not yet been analyzed
from a nonequilibrium thermodynamics perspective.
E-mail: pabum@cie.unam.mx