How to simulate polystyrene devolatilization, two solvents (sanchez-lacombe)
A solution-polymerized polystyrene (100 kg/mol) carried in toluene and benzene, flashed at 480 K and 0.2 atm to strip the solvent — the multi-solvent case the Flory-Huggins package cannot take (one polymer, one solvent) and the reason the Sanchez-Lacombe lattice-fluid equation of state is in the tree. Characteristic parameters are the published ones: polystyrene T* 735 K, P* 357 MPa, rho* 1105 kg/m3; toluene 543 K, 402 MPa, 966 kg/m3; benzene 523 K, 444 MPa, 994 kg/m3 (Sanchez & Lacombe, J. Phys. Chem. 80 (1976) 2352 and Macromolecules 11 (1978) 1145), with the segment number r from M P*/(R T* rho*). What it computes: 94% of the feed moles leave overhead as solvent vapour and the melt retains 0.16 wt% residual solvent — read it on mass, not moles, since a 100 kg/mol chain is one mole against 0.09 kg/mol solvents. No binary k_ij (none is published for this pair); a single equilibrium stage, no diffusion-limited devolatilization kinetics.
- 1Open the ready-made model
Open the "Polystyrene devolatilization, two solvents (Sanchez-Lacombe)" model in the MaximaLabs workspace — no install, no license. It loads live on the canvas, ready to edit and run.
- 2Confirm the thermodynamics
This process is modeled with the SANCHEZ-LACOMBE property package over polystyrene, toluene, benzene — already selected, so the phase equilibrium and enthalpy are physically consistent from the first run.
- 3Review the flowsheet
The flowsheet chains Devol. Every block is a real, solvable unit op you can reconfigure on the canvas.
- 4Run the simulation
Click Run. The deterministic solver converges the material and energy balances (recycles included) and fills the live stream table — the AI never invents a number.
- 5Read the results and iterate
Inspect the converged streams, tweak a spec, and re-run — or ask the AI copilot to explain a result or diagnose a failed solve in plain English.
- Thermodynamics
- SANCHEZ-LACOMBE
- Components
- polystyrene, toluene, benzene
- Unit operations
- Devol
Opens live on the canvas — free, no install.
Explore the model & flowsheetFrequently asked questions
- What does the Polystyrene devolatilization, two solvents (Sanchez-Lacombe) model simulate?
- A solution-polymerized polystyrene (100 kg/mol) carried in toluene and benzene, flashed at 480 K and 0.2 atm to strip the solvent — the multi-solvent case the Flory-Huggins package cannot take (one polymer, one solvent) and the reason the Sanchez-Lacombe lattice-fluid equation of state is in the tree. Characteristic parameters are the published ones: polystyrene T* 735 K, P* 357 MPa, rho* 1105 kg/m3; toluene 543 K, 402 MPa, 966 kg/m3; benzene 523 K, 444 MPa, 994 kg/m3 (Sanchez & Lacombe, J. Phys. Chem. 80 (1976) 2352 and Macromolecules 11 (1978) 1145), with the segment number r from M P*/(R T* rho*). What it computes: 94% of the feed moles leave overhead as solvent vapour and the melt retains 0.16 wt% residual solvent — read it on mass, not moles, since a 100 kg/mol chain is one mole against 0.09 kg/mol solvents. No binary k_ij (none is published for this pair); a single equilibrium stage, no diffusion-limited devolatilization kinetics.
- Which thermodynamic method does it use?
- The SANCHEZ-LACOMBE property package, over polystyrene, toluene, benzene — already selected. You can switch the method on the canvas before running.
- Which unit operations are in the flowsheet?
- It chains Devol. Every block is a real, solvable unit operation you can reconfigure, add to, or remove.
- Do I need to install software or buy a license?
- No. Polystyrene devolatilization, two solvents (Sanchez-Lacombe) runs entirely in your browser on MaximaLabs — free, no install, no license. Open the model to load it live and run the deterministic solver.
More guides like this
Polystyrene devolatilization (Flory-Huggins)
A molten polystyrene/toluene melt is flashed above its Flory-Huggins bubble point to strip residual solvent — the polymer thermo package's headline use case: the vapor leaves essentially pure solvent while the melt concentrates toward pure polymer, exactly the physics a cubic EoS or an ordinary activity model (sized for components of comparable molecular size) can't represent.
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A binary the databank has no regressed NRTL parameters for, so the column runs on predictive original UNIFAC from the two molecules' groups alone: 50/50 n-hexane and 1-butanol, 20 stages, reflux 2, 45% distillate. UNIFAC predicts the minimum-boiling azeotrope at 97 mol% hexane and 341.7 K, and the column lands its distillate exactly there (96.7%) with an 88% butanol bottoms — the azeotrope, not the stage count, is what caps the overhead purity, and that is a prediction from group contributions with no data on this pair behind it. Read it as a screening result: original UNIFAC's mean error against fitted binaries in this tree is 0.08 in ln gamma, and an alkane/alcohol pair is in its well-behaved range.
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A recovered 1-butanol solvent contaminated with 5 mol% toluene, redistilled to send the toluene overhead: 24 stages, reflux 3, an 8% distillate. There is no fitted toluene/1-butanol binary, so this runs on modified UNIFAC (Dortmund) — the variant that cuts infinite-dilution error from 42% to 16% in this tree, and a dilute contaminant in a solvent is exactly the infinite-dilution regime. Dortmund puts the toluene/butanol azeotrope at 67 mol% toluene (original UNIFAC: 70%), which is why the overhead comes out at 43% toluene rather than pure, and the bottoms at 1.7% toluene — two-thirds of the contaminant removed per pass. The 3-point azeotrope difference between the two variants is the size of the model choice on this pair.