Soran University

Faculty of Engineering
Chemical Engineering Department

DISTILLATION

Prepared by
Muhammad Hussein Abdullah
Supervisor:
Dr. Arkan jasm

2017/2018
Introduction:
Distillation, process involving the conversion of a liquid into vapour that is
subsequently condensed back to liquid form. It is exemplified at its
simplest when steam from a kettle becomes deposited as drops of distilled
water on a cold surface. Distillation is used to separate liquids from
nonvolatile solids, as in the separation of alcoholic liquors from fermented
materials, or in the separation of two or more liquids having different
boiling points, as in the separation of gasoline, kerosene, and lubricating
oil from crude oil. Other industrial applications include the processing of
such chemical products as formaldehyde and phenol and the desalination
of seawater. The distillation process appears to have been utilized by the
earliest experimentalists. Aristotle (384–322 BC) mentioned that pure
water is made by the evaporation of seawater. Pliny the Elder (AD 23–79)
described a primitive method of condensation in which the oil obtained by
heating rosin is collected on wool placed in the upper part of an apparatus
known as a still.
Most methods of distillation used by industry and in laboratory research
are variations of simple distillation. This basic operation requires the use
of a still or retort in which a liquid is heated, a condenser to cool the
vapour, and a receiver to collect the distillate. In heating a mixture of
substances, the most volatile or the lowest boiling distills first, and the
others subsequently or not at all.
This simple apparatus is entirely satisfactory for the purification of a liquid
containing nonvolatile material and is reasonably adequate for separating
liquids of widely divergent boiling points. For laboratory use, the
apparatus is commonly made of glass and connected with corks, rubber
bungs, or ground-glass joints. For industrial applications, larger equipment
of metal or ceramic is employed.

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 A method called fractional distillation, or differential distillation, has been
developed for certain applications, such as petroleum refining, because
simple distillation is not efficient for separating liquids whose boiling
points lie close to one another. In this operation the vapours from a
distillation are repeatedly condensed and revaporized in an insulated
vertical column. Especially important in this connection are the still heads,
fractionating columns, and condensers that permit the return of some of
the condensed vapour toward the still. The objective is to achieve the
closest possible contact between rising vapour and descending liquid so as
to allow only the most volatile material to proceed in the form of vapour to
the receiver while returning the less volatile material as liquid toward the
still. The purification of the more volatile component by contact between
such countercurrent streams of vapour and liquid is referred to as
rectification, or enrichment.
Multiple-effect distillation, often called multistage-flash evaporation, is
another elaboration of simple distillation. This operation, used primarily
by large commercial desalting plants, does not require heating to convert a
liquid into vapour. The liquid is simply passed from a container under high
atmospheric pressure to one under lower pressure. The reduced pressure
causes the liquid to vaporize rapidly; the resulting vapour is then
condensed into distillate.
A variation of the reduced-pressure process uses a vacuum pump to
produce a very high vacuum. This method, called vacuum distillation, is
sometimes employed when dealing with substances that normally boil at
inconveniently high temperatures or that decompose when boiling under
atmospheric pressure. Steam distillation is an alternative method of
achieving distillation at temperatures lower than the normal boiling point.
It is applicable when the material to be distilled is immiscible (incapable
of mixing) and chemically nonreactive with water.

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Examples of such materials include fatty acids and soybean oils. The usual
procedure is to pass steam into the liquid in the still to supply heat and
cause evaporation of the liquid.

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Factories that use distillation process:
No. Factories
1 Water Purification
2 Alcoholic Beverages
3 Petroleum refinery
4 Perfume
5 Food Flavorings
6 Pharmacy industry
7 environmental technologies
8 Synthesis of Polymer
9 Edible oil industry
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Type of distillation
Simple distillation
Fractional distillation
Fractional distillation
Steam distillation
Steam distillation
Simple distillation
destructive distillation
distillation precipitation
Vacuum distillation
 Crude oil refinery by using Distillation
System Description:
The process of distillation should be familiar to most readers. The basic
concept is that we can separate a mixture of two pure liquids with different
boiling points by heating the mixture to a temperature between their
respective boiling points. This phenomenon is usually quantified by the
relative volatility of the two components. a distillation column is used to
make this process more efficient. A schematic diagram of a distillation
column is shown below.

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The distillation column itself is made up of a series of stacked plates. A
liquid feed containing the mixture of both liquids enters the column at one
or more points. The liquid flows over the plates, and vapour bubbles up
through the liquid via holes in the plates. As liquid travels down the
column, vapour comes in contact with it many times (due to the multiple
plates). This is the critical process in distillation columns. The liquid and
vapour phases are brought into contact because as one molecule of higher
boiling material converts from vapour to liquid phase by energy release,
another molecule of the low boiling material utilises the free energy to
convert from liquid to vapour phase.The base of the distillation column
contains a large volume of liquid, which is mostly the liquid with higher
boiling point (in our example, this would be water). Out of the base flows
some of this liquid, some of which is heated in the reboiler and returned to
the column. This is called the boilup, and is labeled V. The remaining
liquid is the bottom product, labeled B. Some vapour escapes from the top
of the column and is returned to a liquid state in the condenser. Some of
this liquid is returned to the column as reflux L, and the remainder is the
top product or distillate D.

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Fractional distillation:
The oil refining process starts with a fractional distillation column. The
various components of crude oil have different sizes, weights and boiling
temperatures; so, the first step is to separate these components. Because
they have different boiling temperatures, they can be separated easily by a
process called fractional distillation. After going through the fractional
distillation, crude oil is chemically processed to change one fraction into
another. Finally, Distillated and chemically processed fractions are treated
to remove impurities. This process is based on the principle that different
substances boil at different temperatures. For example, crude oil contains
kerosene and naphtha, which are useful fractions (naphtha is made into
petrol for cars, and kerosene is made into jet fuel). When you evaporate
the mixture of kerosene and naphtha, and then cool it, the kerosene
condenses at a higher temperature than the naphtha. As the mixture cools,
the kerosene condenses first, and the naphtha condenses later.

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The fractional distillation of crude oil carries out several steps:
1. Heating the mixture of the substances of crude oil (liquids) with
different boiling points to a high temperature. Heating is usually done with
high pressure steam to temperatures of about1112 degrees Fahrenheit / 600
degrees Celsius.
2. The mixture boils, forming vapor (gases) most substances go into the
vapor phase.
3. The vapor enters the bottom of a long column (fractional distillation
column) that is filled with trays or plates. The trays have many holes or
bubble caps (like a loosened cap on a soda bottle) in them to allow the
vapor to pass through. They increase the contact time between the vapor
and the liquids in the column and help to collect liquids that form at
various heights in the column. There is a temperature difference across the
column (hot at the bottom, cool at the top).
4. The vapor rises in the column.
5. As the vapor rises through the trays in the column, it cools.
6. When a substance in the vapor reaches a height where the temperature
of the column is equal to that substance's boiling point, it will condense to
form a liquid. (The substance with the lowest boiling point will condense
at the highest point in the column; substances with higher boiling points
will condense lower in the column)
7. The trays collect the various liquid fractions.

8. The collected liquid fractions may pass to condensers, which cool them
further, and then go to storage tanks, or they may go to other areas for
further chemical processing.

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The major components of crude oil:
Name of the State of Number of carbons Boiling Uses
Component matter range
Petroleum gas gas Small alkanes (1 to 4 40 degrees used for heating,
carbon atoms) commonly Celsius cooking, making
known by the names plastics
methane, ethane, propane,
butane
Naphtha gas mix of 5 to 9 carbon atom 60 to 100 intermediate that
alkanes degrees will be further
Celsius processed to make
gasoline
Gasoline Liquid Mix of alkanes and 40 to 205 Motor fuel
cycloalkanes (5 to 12 degrees
carbon atoms) Celsius

Kerosene Liquid Mix of alkanes (10 to 18 175 to 325 fuel for jet engines
carbons) and aromatics degrees and tractors starting
Celsius material for making
other products

Diesel distillate Liquid Alkanes containing 12 or 250 to 350 used for diesel fuel
more carbons degrees and heating oil
Celsius starting material for
making other
products

Lubricating oil Liquid Long chain; 20 to 50 300 to 370 used for motor oil,
carbon atoms degrees grease, other
Celsius lubricants

Fuel oil Liquid Long chain; 20 to 70 370 to 600 used for industrial
carbon atoms degrees fuel starting
Celsius material for making
other products

Residuals Liquid Multiple-ringed Greater coke, asphalt, tar,

compounds with 70 or than 600 waxes starting
more carbon atoms degrees material for making
Celsius other products

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References
1.https://www.britannica.com/science/distillation
2.https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/chemical-engineering-science
3.https://sciencing.com/practical-uses-distillation-6111781.html
4.http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/v.ramani007-2676850-
distillation-pharmaceutical-unit-opration/
5.http://folk.ntnu.no/skoge/diplom/prosjekt09/mar/Distillation%20pro
ject.pdf
6.https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/app.44181
7.http://csd.newcastle.edu.au/simulations/dist_sim.html
8.https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261551891_Distillation_pr
ocess_of_Crude_oil
9. http://nptel.ac.in/courses/103103029/29
10. E. Goldberg (ed.), Handbook of Downstream Processing
11. http://www.gdtc6.com/
12. Article, Synthesis of poly(N‐isopropylacrylamide) by distillation
precipitation polymerization and quantitative grafting on mesoporous
silica
13. http://nptel.ac.in/courses/103103029/31

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