Continuous Distillation with a Fouling Reboiler A large chemical plant operates a fouling reboiler with forced circulation on a distillation column. When allowing boiling in the tubes, the operation suffers from severe fouling of the exchanger. Suppressing the evaporation in the tubes by installing a throttle plate in the reboiler outlet did not inhibit fouling. The … [Read more...]
Fluxxion Metallic Membranes for Absorption, Stripping & Distillation – Part 1
Fluxxion Metallic Membranes can be used in place of packed columns. They are usually placed in stacks and have no moving parts. Industry needs new low energy separations with enhanced safety and increased flexibility. A membrane stack can have a 15 cm diameter and a thickness of 0.7 mm. There would be 5 billion identical pores on each membrane … [Read more...]
Batch vs. Continuous Distillation
Choosing the right distillation method is a highly important decision. However, if you’re not familiar with the two (2) types of distillation processes, making this choice can be difficult without good information. Typically, there are two types of distillation processes that you could choose: batch or continuous. Because both of these methods have their inherent … [Read more...]
Distillation Part 3 – Special Topics in Distillation
Distillation is an essential process for the chemical process industries. If you haven’t already read Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, we recommend reading this information for a more thorough understanding of tower internals and reboilers. The final part of our distillation series will examine special situations that may occur through the course of the distillation. Although … [Read more...]
Distillation Part 1 – Packed Towers vs. Tray (Plate) Towers
Distillation is one of the most important unit operations in the Chemical Process Industry (CPI). The distillation process utilizes towers with internals. Examining the different tower types is a first step when learning about the distillation process. As one of the most essential pieces of a distillation system, towers need to fit the distillation process properly and must … [Read more...]