Study Questions for
“Separation Process Principles” by
J. D. Seader and Ernest J. Henley
Chapter 1 Section 1.1:
1. What are the two key process operations in chemical engineering?
2. What are the main auxiliary process operations in chemical engineering?
3. What is the difference between a block flow diagram and a process flow diagram?
4. Why do almost all industrial chemical processes contain separation operations?
5. List as many reasons as you can for employing separation operations in a chemical process.
Section 1.2:
6. Is the separation of a mixture a spontaneous, natural process?
7. What are the five general separation techniques and what do they all have in common?
8. Why is mass transfer a major factor in separation processes?
9. What limits the extent to which the separation of a mixture can be achieved?
10. List at least five property differences that can exploited to develop a separation process.
Section 1.3:
11. What are the two agents that can be used to create a second phase in the separation of a chemical mixture?
12. What is the most common method used to separate two fluid phases?
13. List five separation operations that use an ESA.
14. List five separation operations that use an MSA.
16. What is extractive distillation? How does it differ from distillation and when should it be considered?
17. What is the difference between absorption and stripping?
18. What is liquid-liquid extraction, when should it be considered, and how does it differ from supercritical-fluid extraction and leaching?
19. What is the basic requirement for removing liquid from a wet solid by evaporation?
20. What two separation operations involve the formation of crystals?
Section 1.4:
21. How does the mechanism of separation for a microporous membrane differ from that of a nonporous membrane?
22. Why can't osmosis be used to separate a liquid mixture?
23. How do reverse osmosis and dialysis differ? What do they have in common?
24. How does gas permeation differ from pervaporation?
25. What is a liquid membrane?
Section 1.5:
26. In the separation of a mixture, how does the action of a membrane differ from that of a solid adsorbent?
27. What is the difference between adsorption and absorption?
28. Adsorption requires that the adsorbed chemicals be separated from the adsorbent, to regenerate it and prepare it for reuse. How do pressure-swing adsorption and thermal-swing adsorption differ in the means of regeneration?
Section 1.6:
29. What is the difference between dialysis and electrodialysis?
30. How does field-flow fractionation work from a fluid mechanics standpoint?
Section 1.7:
32. For a separation operation, is it possible to specify the recovery of a feed component and the mole (or mass) fraction of that same component in one of the products?
33. Is the component split fraction the same as the component recovery?
34. What is the difference between the split fraction and split ratio?
35. What is a key component?
36. What is a multicomponent product?
Section 1.8:
37. What factors of a separation operation influence the degree of separation?
38. What is the separation power?
Section 1.9:
39. When selecting a separation method, what are the most important factors?
