Distillation Tower

Distillation Tower

Short-path distillation offers advantages such as low distillation temperatures, high vacuum levels, and reduced heating times, making it suitable for purifying high-boiling-point, heat-sensitive, and easily oxidizable substances. However, the short-path distillation column, fundamentally, is a type of distillation equipment with limited separation efficiency. Even for molecular distillation, for substances with similar volatility and molecular weight differences, achieving a thorough separation is challenging, even with multi-stage short-path distillation (or molecular distillation). Therefore, a fractionating column with a higher number of theoretical trays is required for the separation of these systems.
To ensure the distillation tower's effective use in separating high-boiling-point and thermally sensitive liquids, a distillation system with no material retention within the tower and its auxiliary equipment (reboiler) is suitable for precise separation of high-boiling-point and thermally sensitive substances, such as in the petrochemical, fragrance, and other industries. This system is used for vacuum rectification and for precise separation of difficult-to-separate systems requiring large theoretical plates, such as isomer separation. In this distillation system, a packed tower (equipped with metal corrugated plates, metal wire mesh, and other structured packing) is used as the distillation tower to minimize the residence time of thermally sensitive materials inside and reduce pressure drop. To prevent material retention within the tower, special designs have been implemented for internal components (such as feed distributors, collectors, and support grids). Additionally, no-material-retention falling film evaporators and rotating film evaporators are used as reboilers.
Occasionally, the products at the bottom of a fractionating tower require further distillation to achieve desirable color and purity. In such cases, we recommend clients opt for short-path distillation or film evaporation to distill the tower bottom products. In summary, we will conduct distillation/refining experiments and design solutions based on the properties of the materials to be separated and the client's requirements.