The purpose is to provide fundamental knowledge about the main methods of chemical and physical separation. This knowledge is necessary to understand and analyze a physical-chemical process, and to design a separation unit.

The student will acquire basic knowledge on the following topics:
- Main separation processes used in the process industry.
- The concept of equilibrium stage and stage efficiency.
- Main multi-stage units.
- Graphic and numeric methods for calculating the number of stages or of the packed bed height of separation units.
- Assumptions and applicative limits of the mathematical models used in the separation units.

Expected skills:
- Be able to do balances of material and energy of a single stage unit and a multi-stage unit.
- Be able to perform the freedom degree analysis of a separation multi-stage units, to evaluate whether the problem is underspecified and in this case to saturate the degrees of freedom with suitable specifications.
- Be able to calculate the number of stages of equilibrium and the number of stages of the main real separation units used in the process industry.
- Be able to calculate the height of a packed column necessary to obtain a specify separation.

Basic integral and differential calculus.

Introduction to physical chemical separation processes: tray columns and packed columns; concept of equilibrium stage; multiple-stage cross-flow, multi-stage counter-current; analysis and determination of the number of degrees of freedom of the separation units.
Multi-component flash: freedom degrees and design specifications ; Rachford-Rice’s equation; numerical solution methods.
Liquid-liquid extraction: units of separation, design specifications and freedom degrees, graphical calculus of the number of equilibrium stage using a ternary diagram; graphical and analytical calculus using simplified methods.
Absorption and desorption of gas. Tray towers: design specifications and freedom degrees, graphical and analytical calculus for diluted and concentrated systems. Packed columns: design equations and numerical calculus for diluted systems and concentrated systems.
Continuous distillation in tray columns: design specifications and degrees of freedom; method of Ponchon-Savarit; McCabe-Thiele method; Riccati method; Underwood method. Simplified methods for multi-component distillation. Batch distillation.

- Unit Operations of Chemical Engineering / W.L. McCabe, J.C. Smith, P. Harriott - New York: McGraw- Hill, 1993.
- Mass- transfer operations / R.E. Treybal - Auckland: McGraw-Hill, 1981.
- Equilibrium-Stage Separation Operations in Chemical Engineering / E.J. Henley, J.D. Seader - New York: Wiley, 1981.

The exam consists of a written test (3.5 hours) and a optional oral examination. The purpose of the tests is to examine the theoretical understanding of the subject and the ability to solve specific problems. The written test consists in calculation exercises. The students with a written vote of at least 21 can access to the oral test if they wish. The oral test concerns the theoretical part. During the written test, students can consult only the material provided by the teacher, they cannot use any other information source such as books, manuals or notes.