General Information:

·         Syllabus, Course Goals, Learning Objectives, Regrading Policy, and Statement on Academic Conduct

·         Detailed Reading Assignments

Professor Frey's Separation Processes WebBook:

·         Chapter 1: Basic Concepts

·         Chapter 2: Numerical Methods

·         Chapter 3: Use of Excel and Matlab for Numerical Computations

·         Chapter 4: Thermodynamics of Phase Equilibrium

·         Chapter 5 (part 1): Single-Stage Equilibrium Processes

·         Chapter 5 (part 2): Degree of Freedom Analysis and Description Rule Applied to a Single-Stage Flash Process

·         Chapter 5 (part 3): Introduction to ChemSep and COCO

·         Chapter 6: Staging and Steam Heating in Separation Processes

·         Chapter 7: Binary Distillation

·         Chapter 8: Multicomponent Distillation

·         Chapter 9: Absorption, Stripping, and Extraction

·         Chapter 10: Capacity and Stage Efficiency

·         Chapter 11: Continuous Contactors

·         Chapter 12: Membrane Processes

·         Chapter 13: Adsorption and Chromatography

·         Chapter 14: Spray Drying, Freeze Drying, and Lyophilization

·         Chapter 15: Selection of Separation Processes

·         Chapter 16: Selection of Solvents for Solvent Extraction  

Problem Set Assignments in ENCH 445 for Fall 2023:

·         Problem Set 1: Basic Numerical Methods  (Due at 2:29 pm, Sept. 17, 2024)

·         Problem Set 2: Phase Equilibrium  (Due 11:59 pm, Oct. 8, 2024)

·         Problem Set 3: Single-Stage Flash Process  (Due 11:59 pm, Nov. 1, 2024)

·         Problem Set 4: Binary Distillation  (Due 11:59 pm, Nov. 14, 2024)

·         Problem Set 5: Multicomponent Distillation  (Due 11:59 pm, Dec. 3, 2024)

Tutorials:  

• APV Handbook on Distillation. An excellent summary of the industrial perspective on distillation technology.
• Design Steam Strippers for Water Treatment.  An excellent review of wastewater treatment using steam stripping written by Jose Bravo. This article appeared in Chemical Engineering Progress (vol. 90(12), 56-63, Dec. 1994) and is provided courtesy of the Separations Division of AIChE.
• Solve wastewater problems with liquid-liquid extraction. This article from Chemical Engineering Progress (vol. 92(4), 56-63, April, 1996) on wastewater treatment using liquid extraction was written by Roger Cusak and is provided courtesy of the Separations division of AIChE.
• Heuristic synthesis and shortcut design of separation processes using residue curve maps.  This review article from Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. (vol. 33, 2505, 1994) on the use of residue curve maps for distillation process synthesis and conceptual design was written by G.-J. A. F. Fien and Y. A. Liu.

      Tutorials on Steam Heating, Heat Exchangers, and Steam Traps:

• Steam Heating and Steam Traps. This very practical guide is from ITT Industries.
• Operation of Thermosiphon Reboilers. This tutorial comes from the plant design course taught by Daniel at Technion.
• Heat Exchanger Design. This tutorial also comes from the plant design course taught by Daniel Lewin at Technion.

      Tutorials on the Description Rule:

• Description rule for a single stage flash process. This is a link to material in Chapter 2 of Separation Processes by C. Judson King which describes a simple method to determine the number of degrees of freedom for a single stage flash process.
• Degrees of freedom and problem specification for binary distillation. This is a link to Appendix C of Separation Processes by C. J. King which applies the description rule to binary and multicomponent distillation.
• The Description Rule for Complex Distillation Processes. This material is taken from Chapter 1 of Computation of Multistage Separation Processes by Donald N. Hanson, John H. Duffin, and Graham F. Somerville.

      Tutorial on Experienced-Based Rules in Chemical Engineering:

• Experienced-Based Rules in Chemical Engineering. This article, which comes from the Cheresources.com website, summarizes many "rules of thumb" in the area of chemical process design, including the design of separation processes. It is a summary of the contents of the textbooks on this subject by S. M. Walas, Richard Turton, Carl R. Branan, and Christopher Haslego. The content of this article is also available in a very handy Excel spreadsheet which you can obtain here.

      Tutorials on Adsorption:

• Adsorbent Selection from Adsorption Research Inc.
• Adsorber Design from Adsorption Research Inc.

      Tutorials on Drying and Evaporation:

• APV Handbook on Drying
• APV Handbook on Evaporation

      General Tutorials on Software:

• Tutorial on solving systems of ODEs using Excel
• Tutorial on importing an Excel spreadsheet into ASPEN

      Tutorials on using COCO and ChemSep:

• Tutorial on getting started with ChemSep. This is also Chapter 5 (part 3) of Professor Frey's Separation Processes WebBook.
• COCO/ChemSep tutorial. Part 1.  Part 1 of this Youtube tutorial from Professor Frey's YouTube Channel gives a brief overview of COCO and COFE.
• COCO/ChemSep tutorial. Part 2.  Part 2 of this Youtube tutorial from Professor Frey's YouTube channel shows how to use ChemSep within COFE and is based on the example distillation problem given below.
• COCO/ChemSep tutorial. Part 3.  Part 3 of this Youtube tutorial from Professor Frey's YouTube channel shows how to incorporate an Excel spreadsheet model into COFE and is based on the example distillation problem given below.
• Multicomponent distillation example problem for the above three tutorials.  
• Troubleshooting and usage guide for COFE.  
• COCO tutorial by Menwar Attarakih.  This YouTube tutorial was developed by Menwar Attarakih at the University of Jordan.
• Tutorial on adding chemical components to ChemSep.

      Tutorials on the Julia Programming Language:

• Is it worth the effort to learn to use Julia?  Julia is a new, free and open source computer programming language that was developed at MIT. Julia was designed for science and engineering applications and especially for high-performance numerical computing and machine learning. The goal of the Julia language is to achieve an unprecedented combination of programming simplicity and computational speed. But there are already several options available for computer programming languages. Is another option really needed? This document answers this question.
• Is it worth the effort to learn to use Julia?  A pdf version of the above document.
• Comparison of the syntax used in MATLAB, Python, and Julia  This document compares the syntax used for MATLAB, Python, and Julia. As shown, MATLAB and Julia are very similar and have streamlined syntax in comparison to Python, which is syntactically more bloated and clumsy looking.
• Installing Julia and the Jupyter notebook system.
• Julia tutorials for science and engineering applications.

Websites for Companies Involved in Separation Processes:

• AMACS Separations and Mass-Transfer Products. Column packings for absorbers and strippers.
• Applied Separations Inc.Supercritical fluid and pressurized solvent extraction systems.
• GEA Process Engineering Inc. Spray drying, membrane filtration, evaporation.
• Hydranautics Inc. Membranes
• Koch Modular Process Systems. Distillation, extraction, absorption and stripping processes.  The section on Past Projects has lots of pictures of industrial equipment.
• Koch-Glitsch, Inc. Packed tower internals, structured packings, random packings, and trays for absorbers, strippers, and distillation columns.  Try out their free column design software.
• Lantec Products Inc. Tower packings for absorbers, strippers, and distillation columns.  The section on Case Histories has some interesting discussions of projects.
• PCI Membrane Systems, Inc.  Microfiltration, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration, and reverse osmosis systems
• Purolite Inc.: Ion Exchange Resins.
• ResinTech: Manufacturer of Ion Exchange Resins, Activated Carbon, and Selective Ion Exchange Media
• Sulzer. Packings and trays for columns, fractional crystallization, pervaporation processes. They also have free design software.
• SX Kinetics Inc. - Specialists in Solvent Extraction

Databases and Libraries:

• CheResources.com This is a link to the Separation Technologies portion of the process design articles part of the Chemical Engineers Resource Page website. You can scroll up and down to see other useful process design articles.
• NIST Chemistry WebBook. This useful database contains thermodynamic properties for over 7000 organic and inorganic species.

Useful Free Software:

• ChemSep-LITE.   This free version of ChemSep, called ChemSep-LITE, simulates multicomponent distillation, absorption, stripping, liquid-liquid extraction, and single-stage flash processes and was developed by Ross Taylor at Clarkson University and Harry Kooijman at Shell Global Solutions International. Be sure to also look at the rest of the ChemSep website, which contains lots of interesting information. ChemSep is a CAPE-OPEN (Computer Aided Process Engineering Open Source) compliant software program and is part of the COCO (CAPE OPEN to CAPE OPEN) suite of free software described in the next link.
• COCO.   COCO (CAPE OPEN to CAPE OPEN) is a suite of free computer aided process engineering software programs that includes COFE (CAPE OPEN Flowsheet Enviroment), CORN (CAPE OPEN Reaction Numerics), ChemSep as described in the previous link, and many other components. For maximum software stability, you should uninstall any previous versions of ChemSep on your computer before you install COCO so you have only one copy of ChemSep on your computer. COCO is an example of the newest generation of software for computer aided process engineering which consists of "plug and play" components that are largely free.
• Octave.  An open-source free MATLAB clone originally developed at the University of Wisconsin
• Julia.  An open-source free programming language developed at MIT for high-performance computing and machine learning applications. See the additional information on this language in the Tutorials Section.
• WAVE  This software for the design of water treatment systems including ion-exchange processes was developed by DOW.
• Pressure Swing Adsorption Calculator.   This software for designing pressure swing adsorption processes was developed by James Ritter at the University of South Carolina.
• Dynamic Simulation of Multicomponent Distillation.  An Excel spreadsheet developed by Douglas Frey at UMBC which simulates the time-dependent approach to steady state of a multicomponent distillation column when the plate compositions are initially set at arbitrary values.  This software also provides a convenient way to solve the multicomponent steady-state "operating problem" by simulating the approach to steady state.

Online Books:

• Separation Processes, 2nd ed.  This is the link to the free on-line version of the classic book on separation processes by C. Judson King. The paperback version of this textbook is published by Dover and is well worth purchasing as a low-cost supplementary textbook in a separation processes course. It is available from Amazon and similar sites.

Online Books for Fun:

• The Art of Distillation.  This book is a little old.  Actually, it was originally published in the year 1651 by the alchemist John French.
• The Home Distillation Handbook.  For the home hobbyist.  But be careful, the procedures described in this book are illegal to do in the U.S.

Photographs:

• Fall 2007: Class photograph
• Fall 2008: Class photograph
• Fall 2008: Class trip to Millennium Inorganic Chemicals
• Spring 2009: Class trip to GenVec
• Fall 2009: Class photograph
• Fall 2009: Class trip to Pompeian Oils
• Fall 2010: Class photograph
• Fall 2011: Class photograph
• Fall 2011: Class trip to Diageo
• Fall 2012: Class photograph
• Fall 2013: Class photograph
• Fall 2014: Class photograph
• Fall 2015: Class photograph
• Fall 2016: Class photograph