Oil and Gas

| Distillation is defined as: `Distillation is based on the fact that the vapor of a boiling mixture will be richer in the components that have lower boiling points.Therefore, when this vapor is cooled and condensed, the condensate will contain more volatile components. At the same time, the original mixture will contain more of the less volatile material. Distillation columns are designed to achieve this separation efficiently.Although many people have a fair idea what “distillation” means, the important aspects that seem to be missed from the manufacturing point of view are that: | distillation is the most common separation technique | | it consumes enormous amounts of energy, both in terms of cooling and heating requirements | | it can contribute to more than 50% of plant operating costs | The best way to reduce operating costs of existing units, is to improve their efficiency and operation via process optimisation and control. To achieve this improvement, a thorough understanding of distillation principles and how distillation systems are designed is essential. The purpose of this set of notes is to expose you to the terminology used in distillation practice and to give a very basic introduction to: | | types of columns | | basic distillation equipment and operation | | column internals | | reboilers | | distillation principles | | vapor liquid equilibria | | distillation column design and | | the factors that affect distillation column operation | | | | | | | TYPES OF DISTILLATION COLUMNS | There are many types of distillation columns, each designed to perform specific types of separations, and each design differs in terms of complexity. | Batch and Continuous Columns | One way of classifying distillation column type is to look at how they are operated. Thus we have: | | batch and | | continuous columns. | Batch Columns | In batch operation, the feed to the column is introduced batch-wise. That

Cited: http://lorien.ncl.ac.uk/ming/distil/distiltyp.htm | | |