Distillation Column

Distillation Column

A distillation column or tower is a vertical cylindrical shell that houses layers of column internals. (Click on the Piping and Instrumentation Diagram (P & ID) on the right in order to see the location of this component within the distillation column.) Depending on the design and mechanical nature of column internals, distillation columns are generally classified into two types: tray column with mechanical trays arranged in cascade, and packed column with randomly dumped or structured packings as column internals, as shown in Figures 2.1 and 2.2. Both tray columns and packed columns are widely used in various industries to facilitate gas-liquid contacts and separation of liquid and gas mixtures.

From operation and design viewpoint, tray column is a stage-wise process in which mass transfer or separation only takes place on individual trays, whereas packed column is a differential mass transfer process in which mass transfer occurs continuously from the bottom to top of the column between liquid and vapour streams flowing countercurrently.

Despite many different tray designs available commercially, distillation column generally needs more plates than the number of equilibrium stages, as mass transfer limitations and poor contact efficiency prevent equilibrium being achieved on a plate.

This distillation column is a separation of cyclohexane and n-heptane. The two components are separated over 30 theoretical trays. In general, distillation column models are generally good test cases for nonlinear model reduction and identification. The concentrations at each stage or tray are highly correlated. The dynamics of the distillation process can be described by a relatively few number of underlying dynamic states. We take your separation technology and use our proven engineering methods to model it for separation feasibility at desired production rates.