Separating Middle Components by Using Improved Pulse Cascades

A new operation manner of pulse cascade was proposed. Compared with the pulse cascade without the improvement, smaller final pulse number and shorter transient time are needed, and it is more feasible in engineering. In separating multicomponent mixtures, compared with the conventional cascades, this improved pulse cascade is able to obtain the same degree of separation with shorter cascade lengths and fewer centrifuges. In the case that the cascade lengths and the total numbers of centrifuges are the same for separating a middle component, better performance is achieved, yielding higher concentration in the product and lower in the waste, in contrast to the conventional cascade. With an additional withdrawal at an appropriate middle stage chosen through optimization, a pulse cascade produces products with much higher concentration of the target middle component than a conventional cascade.