ABSTRACT
Introduction Distillation is essentially the separation of components from a fully miscible fluid. Once heat is applied to a mixture, the more volatile component will evaporate to a larger quantity and the vapor phase will be richer with a more volatile component. This separation is possible due to the difference in the volatility of components, which allows a vapor phase rich in more volatile components and a liquid phase rich in less volatile components. In the distillation process, each stage receives vapor from the bottom section of the column and liquid from the top section, and the stage is in a vapor-liquid equilibrium. In each stage, the more volatile component moves from the liquid phase to the vapor phase and the less volatile component moves from the vapor phase to the liquid phase. Thus, with the exchange in components, the upper stages become richer in more volatile components and the lower stages become richer in less volatile components.
