Item

Abstract

The bifurcations are studied in simple reactive distillation processes, where liquid-phase splitting can happen, and the chemical reaction can occur in both or only one of the two liquid phases. Due to the different basic singular points and different chemical equilibrium curves, the bifurcations in the heterogeneous system are identical outside but fully different inside the liquid-liquid region compared to those in the pseudohomogeneous chemical equilibrium curve system. The bifurcations are also different inside the liquid-liquid region when the chemical reaction takes place in only one of the two liquid phases. There are potential singular point curves which are connected by the basic singular points in the corresponding nonreactive system. All the singular point bifurcations with respect to the normalized Damkohler number D and all the pinch point bifurcations with respect to the chemical equilibrium constant K follow these potential singular point curves. The analysis reveals that there exist critical values of the parameters D and K, at which the properties of the singular points change.