What Is High Vacuum Distillation?
Basic distillation entails bringing a liquid up to boiling, capturing the evaporating materials and allowing them to condense. This may be done to remove impurities or to separate components of a liquid. High vacuum distillation performs distillation at a lower atmospheric pressure.
Other People Are Reading
-
How It Works
-
The air exerts pressure on everything, and this pressure, according to the University of Colorado, drives the boiling point higher. The reduction in the pressure the vacuum generates creates a reduction in the boiling point, which allows for shorter and lower-heat distillation.
Why It's Used
-
Some materials will begin to degrade or bond together (polymerize) if exposed to high heat or long durations of high heat. High vacuum distillation allows these materials to be distilled while reducing the risk of damage.
-
Uses
-
High vacuum distillation is used in laboratories and by the pharmaceutical industry, reports Myers Vacuum. An article on the Chemical Engineers Resource Page also indicates that it is used in oil refining.
Types
-
High vacuum distillation is generally broken into two areas: wet and dry. Wet high vacuum distillation is the older technology and requires steam to accomplish distillation; whereas the dry method can be done without steam.
Benefits
-
One of the major benefits of high vacuum distillation, according to Myers Vacuum, is that the purity of the end products (distillates) tend to be higher than in other distillation methods.
-
References
- Photo Credit oil well image by michael langley from Fotolia.com
