distillation

general information

experiments:

batch and plug flow reactors

distillation

liquid/liquid extraction

plate and frame filtration

Distillation

Distillation is one of the leading separation techniques available for processing. It exploits the differences in the vapor pressures of the components of a mixture to achieve their separation. Distillation can handle wide ranges of mixtures and flows at relatively low capital investment and low risk.

The separation may be possible using stages where the vapor and liquid phases ideally equilibrate or by contacting the phases continuously in a packed column. In this experiment both approaches are investigated.

The distillation apparatus consists of a pilot plant scale batch system that can operate using either a bubble cap tray column or a packed column. By running the distillation at total reflux, the steady-state performance characteristics of both columns may be determined and compared.

Using a binary mixture of acetic acid and water as the feed, the tray column overall efficiency and the individual tray efficiencies may be compared and contrasted to the overall separation efficiency and the HETP of the packed column.

A .pdf version of the experiment instructions is avalaible for download on Cooper Union's internal server.