Cyclopentane Purification from Multicomponent Azeotropic Mixtures

The distillation technique plays a key role in a separation and purification of multicomponent mixtures. Several alternative designs using conventional distillation for purifying cyclopentane with high purity have been done using Pro/II Process Engineering Software. Using conventional distillation process for purifying cyclopentane from close boiling point mixture is uneconomic and impractical. The distillation technique is also applied in the cyclopentane production. However feed mixture contains multicomponent of hydrocarbons including cyclopentane and 2, 2-dimethylbutane forming azeotrope. Only 80-85%wt cyclopentane purity can be achieved from the conventional distillation. Therefore, a widely used technology, extractive distillation is applied for purifying cyclopentane with 95%wt purity. High-purity cyclopentane gains higher benefit from a larger cyclopentane market.