Distillation Lab Report

1.Synopsis

The aim of this experiment is to gain operating experience of a distillation column from simple binary mixture of ethanol and water. During experiment distillation in both batch wise and continuous were investigated. For each mode, reflux ratio and power was manipulated to see the difference in results and analyze. Experimentally determined composition and material balance was compared with theoretically calculated ones, and generally similar values were obtained, although there were a number of factors that contributed to final result. It was determined that as reflux ratio increases, for batch distillation, top product ethanol fraction decreases respectively. Pressure drop has significant impact on theoretical calculations as

With purer component separation with greater efficiency, distillation is one of promising technique. Investigation on distillation processes found out a number of methods and designs of distillation fitting to different applications. A number of factors that affect the distillation performance and depend upon feed material include distillation column choice, conditions, design parameters, and so on. For instance, vacuum distillation is applied for pressure sensible feed materials, fractional distillation mainly petroleum, while simple distillation to binary mixture of components with different volatilities and so on. The simple binary distillation column sizing method normally involves finding the number of stages from a x-y diagram, the temperature of the distillate and bottoms product using a Txy diagram. The operating lines for the bottom and top of the column depend on the reflux ratio and the condition of the

Blue line indicates dew point curve, while green line gives bubble point curve. To find corresponding fraction of component at liquid phase horizontal strait line is drown from mixture temperature to dew point curve. Perpendicular from this point to x axis enables directly read the fraction of component present in liquid phase. The same procedure is followed for vapor fraction of component, in this case, horizontal line is drown directly to bubble point curve. Figure bellow indicates Txy diagram of Ethanol/Water mixture at atmospheric pressure. From this diagram it is apparent that at 80®C water mole fraction in liquid phase is approximately 0.54 while at vapor fraction is 0.38 at the same temperature. As ethanol is more volatile component, as theory states, vapor is richer with MVC- ethanol, while liquid is richer in less volatile component,