BASIC

DISTILATIO
N

UNIT
 CONTENT
➢INTRODUCTION
➢PRINCIPLE OF DISTILLATION
➢AFFECTING CONDITIONS
➢TYPES OF DISTILLATION COLUMNS
➢BASIC DISTILLATION EQUIPMENT
AND OPERATION
➢BASIC OPERATION AND
TERMINOLOGY
 BASIC DISTILLATION UNIT
INTRODUCTION:
Distillation is a method of separating mixtures based on differences in their
volatilities in a boiling liquid mixture. Distillation is a unit operation, or a physical
separation process, and not a chemical reaction

Commercially, distillation has a number of uses. It is used to separate crude oil;

water is distilled to remove impurities, such as salt from seawater; air is distilled to
separate its components—notably oxygen, nitrogen, and argon—for industrial use.
Distillation of fermented solutions has been used since ancient times to produce
distilled beverages with higher alcohol content. The premises where distillation is
carried out, especially distillation of alcohol are known as a distillery.
Distillation is favored over other separation techniques such as crystallization or
membranes when;
1. The relative volatility is greater than 1.2,
2. Products are thermally stable,
3. Large rates are desired,
4. No corrosion, precipitation or explosion issues are present.

PRINCIPLE OF DISTILLATION:
In distillation unit (column) mixtures can be separated with distillation if the
components of the mixture have different boiling points. The substance in the
mixture with the lowest boiling point vaporizes first, travels through the tubing and
then is condensed in the test tube that sits in the cool water.
The material that remains in the distilling flask is known as the residue. The
substance that travels through the tubing and is later condensed in the test tube is
known as the distillate or condensate.
The apparatus for distillation can be more sophisticated than the one shown here.

A classic example would be an ethanol-water mixture: the ethanol will be

recovered as distillate, or overhead product, while the water will be recovered as
bottoms product.

AFFECTING CONDITIONS:
1) Pressure and Temperature: They can determine how good or how easy the
separation can be, since a different T /or P can give you different equilibrium
conditions, probably determining how theoretical stages are needed, or moving
towards/away from an azeotropic point.
2) Feed condition: It will alter the vapor/liquid content or flow inside the unit, and
it can influence the reboiler duty also: if you use a saturated or subcooled liquid as
a feed, the reboiler will need more heat to evaporate, while this heat is "saved" if
the feed has some vapor phase or is saturated vapor.

3) Reflux ratio: It will determine how pure your overhead product will be, by
means of sacrifying distillate flow rate. If you use more reflux, the separation will
be better, but producing less distillate since you are recirculating it to the column.
If you use less reflux, you will produce more reflux, but most probably with a
lower purity in the light component.

4) Reboiler duty: It will determine how much heavy vapor phase is present in the
column, thus it will determine also how much heavy component is evaporated,
affecting the heavy composition in the bottoms product. The reboiler, duty must be
balanced to generate enough vapor avoiding the contamination of the overhead
product with heavy component.
TYPES OF DISTILLATION COLUMNS
1. Batch Distillation
2. Continuous Distillation

Continuous columns can be further classified according to:

The nature of the feed that they are processing,
• Binary column - feed contains only two components
• Multi-component column - feed contains more than two components

The number of product streams they have

• Multi-product column - column has more than two product streams where
the extra feed exits when it is used to help with the separation,
• Extractive distillation - where the extra feed appears in the bottom product
stream.
• Azeotropic distillation - where the extra feed appears at the top product
stream.

The type of column internals

Tray column - where trays of various designs are used to hold up the liquid to
provide better contact between vapour and liquid, hence better separation
Packed column - where instead of trays, 'packings' are used to enhance contact
between vapour and liquid.

Batch Distillation
Batch distillation refers to the use of distillation in batches, meaning that a mixture
is distilled to separate it into its component fractions before the distillation still is
again charged with more mixture and the process is repeated.
Batch distillation has always been an important part of the production of seasonal,
or low capacity and high-purity chemicals. It is a very frequent separation process
in the pharmaceutical industry and in wastewater treatment units.

Bach Distillation column

Continuous Distillation
Continuous distillation is an ongoing distillation in which a liquid mixture is
continuously (without interruption) fed into the process and separated fractions are
removed continuously as output streams as time passes during the operation.
Continuous distillation produces at least two output fractions, including at least one
volatile distillate fraction, which has boiled and been separately captured as a
vapor condensed to a liquid. There is always a bottoms (or residue) fraction, which
is the least volatile residue that has not been separately captured as a condensed
vapor.
Continuous distillation differs from batch distillation in the respect that
concentrations should not change over time. Continuous distillation can be run at a
steady state for an arbitrary amount of time.
Continuous distillation requires building and configuring dedicated equipment. The
resulting high investment cost restricts its use to the large scale.
BASIC DISTILLATION EQUIPMENT AND
OPERATION
Distillation columns are made up of several components, each of which is used
either to transfer heat energy or enhance material transfer. A typical distillation
contains several major components:
• a vertical shell where the separation of liquid components is carried out
• column internals such as trays/plates and/or packings which are used to
enhance component separations
• a reboiler to provide the necessary vaporization for the distillation process
• a condenser to cool and condense the vapour leaving the top of the column
• a reflux drum to hold the condensed vapour from the top of the column so
that liquid (reflux) can be recycled back to the column
The vertical shell houses the column internals and together with the condenser
and reboiler, constitutes a distillation column. A schematic of a typical
distillation unit with a single feed and two product streams is shown below:

BASIC OPERATION AND TERMINOLOGY

The liquid mixture that is to be processed is known as the feed and this is
introduced usually somewhere near the middle of the column to a tray known as
the feed tray. The feed tray divides the column into a top (enriching or
rectification) section and a bottom (stripping) section. The feed flows down the
column where it is collected at the bottom in the reboiler.
Heat is supplied to the reboiler to generate vapour. The source of heat input can
be any suitable fluid, although in most chemical plants this is normally steam.
In refineries, the heating source may be the output streams of other columns.
The vapour raised in the reboiler is re-introduced into the unit at the bottom of
the column. The liquid removed from the reboiler is known as the bottoms
product or simply, bottoms.

The vapour moves up the column, and as it exits the top of the unit, it is cooled
by a condenser. The condensed liquid is stored in a holding vessel known as the
reflux drum. Some of this liquid is recycled back to the top of the column and
this is called the reflux. The condensed liquid that is removed from the system
is known as the distillate or top product.

Thus, there are internal flows of vapour and liquid within the column as well as
external flows of feeds and product streams, into and out of the column.