Distillation and Alcohol Production Application

Distillation

Distillation and Alcohol Production Application

Distillation process Types of distillation Distillation equipments and properties of them Alcohol production Distillation of alcohol Types of alcohol distillation

Distillation

Distillation is a kind of seperation technique of two or more volatile liquid compunds by using the difference in boiling points and relative volatility. The process takes place in a column, and two heat exchangers. In the column two phases, liquid and gas, are distributed to enrich the vapor in more volatile compounds and enrich the liquid phase on less volatile compounds. Mass transfer is the key to a successful distillation.

Advantages & Disadvantages

Advantages

Disadvantages

It has simple flowsheet, low capital investment, and low risk. If components to be separated have a high relative volatility difference and are thermally stable, distillation is hard to beat.

Distillation has a low energy efficiency and requires thermal stability of compounds at their boiling points. It may not be attractive when azeotropes are involved or when it is necessary to separate high boiling components, present in small concentrations, from large volumes of a carrier, such as water.

Types of Distillation

Continous Distillation Batch Distillation Semi-Batch Distillation

Continous Distillation

The mixture which is to be seperated is fed to column at one or more points. Liquid mixture runs down the column while vapor goes up. Vapor is produced by partial vaporisation of the mixture which is heated in reboiler. Then vapor is partially condensed to earn back the less volatile compounds to the column to seperate as bottom product. (reflux)

Batch Distillation

The oldest operation used for seperation of liquid mixtures. Feed is fed from bottom,where includes reboiler, to be processed. Numbers of accumulator tanks are connected to collect the main and the intermediate distillate fractions.

Semi-batch Distillation

Semi-batch distillation is very similar to batch distillation. Feed is introduced to column in a continous or semi-continous mode. It is suitable for extractive and reactive distillations.

Comparsion of Distillation Types

For batch distillation, it is enough to use only one column to seperate multicomponent liquid mixture. One sequence of operation is enough to seperate all the components in a mixture.

For continous distillation, to seperate multicomponent liquid mixtures, more than one columns are necessary to be used. One column is dedicated to seperate a specific mixture and specific operation.

Equipment Designs

Plate Columns (Tray Columns) Packed Beds

Plate Columns (Tray Columns)

It is the most widely used kind of distillation column. Trays are shaped to maximize the liquid-vapor contact and increase the mass transfer area. Tray types include sieve, valve and bubble cap.

Advantages & Disadvantages

Advantages

Disadvantages

Least expensive colum for diameters greater than 0.6m The liquid-vapor contact in the cross-flow of plate columns is more effective than countercurrent-flow in packed columns. Cooling coils can be easily added to the plate column Can handle high liquid flow rates.

Higher pressure drops than packed columns Foaming can occur because the liquid is agitated by the vapor flowing up through it.

Packed Beds

Packings can be provided either as dumped or stacked. Dumped packing consistutes of bulk inert materials. Stacked packing is includes meshwork which has the same diameter with the column. Important criterias for packings are efficent contact (liquid-vapor), resistence to flow, flow capacity, resistance of packing against corrosion.

Advantages & Disadvantages

When the diameter is less than 0.6m it is less expensive than the plate column. Packing is able to handle corrosive materials. Lower pressure drop than in plate columns. Good for thermally sensitive liquids.

Can break during installation or due to thermal expansion. Not cost efficient for high liquid flow rates. Contact efficiencies are decreased when the liquid flow rate is too low.

Distillation of Alcohol

Under 1 athmosphere pressure boiling points of water and alcohol are 100C and 78.3C. Water and ethyl alcohol mixture forms an azeotrope in athmospheric pressure at a mole fraction of %89.4 of ethyl alcohol which means that by simple distillation of ethyl alcohol, it cannot be purified more than %95.6 w. As distillation equipments, bubble cap trays and tray columns are mostly used in alcohol distillation.(Figure on left)

Azeotropic Distillation

This type of distillation is used for processes that produce almost 100 percent alcohol with help of an organic solvent and two additional distillations. A solvent (pentane, gasoline etc.) is added to distillation product comming out of the usual distillation column. Mixture is fed to another distillation column which seperates it into a top product and a bottom product. Distillate of this column is fed to a third column which distills out the solvent leaving the mixture of alcoholwater. Solvent is recycled and never gets out. System is hard to design and it is more complicated comparing to ordinary distillation system.