Batch Distillation Abstract The purpose of this experiment was to carry out a batch distillation process for an ethanol-water

mixture and compare the final composition that was obtained through the experiment to the final composition based on the mass conservation law. To conduct this experiment, many safety protocols had to be done. For instance, turning on the exhaust fan, damper switch, and the cooling air valve. To begin this experiment, a pump was used to insert the mixed solution into the still pot. Once the liquid in the still pot started boiling (by a heating mental), it has reached total reflux and was time to turn the magnet on. Labview states the temperature at the condenser, and every time we noticed a small change in temperature, we would take a sample of the distillate and use a density meter to obtain the alcohol weight percent. Sampling was done when we noticed water vapor condensing in the column. Throughout the experiment, another team member recorded the time the magnet was on and off, this was used to calculate the reflux ratio. With the reflux ratio, we made a McCabe Thiele diagram. We obtained 4.6 stages and based on mass conservation law, a W of 311.6 moles and xw,final of .02204. From experiment, our W is 311.5 moles and xw,final is .005920. The difference in xw,final is mainly because we believe we calculated the wrong reflux ratio because it required very precise timing. Improvements are to either program Labview to record magnet time on and off or have two people record the time. Overall, this experiment was a success because the batch distillation column did separate the mixture and we were able to analyze the obtained data.