Description and Function of a Distillation Column

If you do not use these components alone, you will be able to do the simplest things in your daily life. For example, gasoline and diesel are used for engines for automobiles and advanced vehicles.  Purification of the mixture For example, if the mixture is oil and dirt, you can distill the mixture to separate the dirt. For example, if crude oil is distilled from its constituents to remove dirt in the oil, it can be purified and used. Gulf countries' mineral water distills seawater into portable water because of lack of natural resources for lakes and clean water.

A brief description of the crude distillation unit (CDU) process is as follows. First, incoming crude oil is warmed before entering the fractionator through a heat exchanger. Thereafter, the crude oil passes through a device called a desalination device to remove water droplets and inorganic salts contained in crude oil. It is then heated further by a heat exchanger. Crude oil then enters the furnace. Here it is heated to 330 - 350 ° C. Crude oil is then flushed in an atmospheric distillation column. Here it is divided into a number of fractions with a specific boiling range. When each fraction in the distillation column reaches a tray whose temperature is just below its own boiling point, the crude oil condenses back to the liquid phase.

In a conventional distillation column (FIG. 1) having a feed, overhead product and bottom, heat is applied to the bottom of the stripping section. In distillation, heat is used as a separating agent. Heat is typically supplied to the bottom reboiler to evaporate the liquid mixture, but heat is lost when the top steam is liquefied in the reflux condenser. The temperature of this heat corresponds to the highest temperature point in the distillation column. The temperature of the heat released at the top of the rectifying section corresponds to the lowest temperature point in the distillation column. Therefore, the distillation involves heat loss from high to low temperature due to the separation operation. If the heat released in the rectification section of the distillation column is not recycled, the distillation efficiency decreases (Smith, 2005).