Distillation

Distillation is a common separating technology in the chemical industry. This method separates the
components successively according to their different volatilities, and it is essential for the separation of
liquid mixtures. Atmospheric pressure distillation, vacuum distillation, steam distillation, and some other
types of distillation have been applied in boil separation.

Bio oil is a thermally sensitive mixture that cannot be effectively separated by traditional distillation
technologies. Typically distillation require high temperature and long distillation duration, that damages
the properties of bio oil, it turns into solid residue, when heated to 100 C during vaccum distillation ,
(Bridgewater 2003 , Murwanshyaka et al 2001)

Converts to solid coke when it is heats to 145 C (Xu et al. 1999)

Molecular distillation is used when we have a bio oil, it is a technique that uses liquid liquid separation
technology that relies on the various free paths of different substance and can be used to isolate the
compounds at much lower temperature. Secondly this is much faster only takes few seconds.

Molecular distillation has been widely used in food- process industries.

Molecular distillation works on the principle of molecular mean free path, it is the effective diament of
the molecule. The heavier molecules have large mean free path and smaller ones have shorter. The
molecular mean free path increases with increasing temperature and lower pressure.

Traditional distillation technology separates components by differences in their boiling points. However,
molecular distillation (or short-path distillation) is quite different and precisely relies on the various
mean free paths of different substances. The distance between the cooling and heating surfaces is less
than the mean free path for a light molecule, but greater than that for a heavy molecule. Therefore, the
light molecules escaping from the heating surface can easily reach the cooling surface and be
condensed.

The dynamic balance is thereby broken, and the light molecules are continuously released from the
liquid phase. On the contrary, the heavy molecules are not released and return to the liquid phase. In
this way, the light and heavy molecules are effectively separated. Molecular distillation technology has
been widely used in the chemical, pharmaceutical, and foodstuff industries, as well as in scientific
research to concentrate and purify organic chemicals.

Conventional distillation method

After being processed by the HDO unit, it can be blended with petroleum fuel and the HDO processed
product is low in oxygen and is of high quality fuel.
DISTILLATION COLUMN

The column is used to divide fuel into three respective fraction, gasoline, diesel and heavier bottoms. A
column functions on the basis of the difference in volatility of the components present in the oil. The
column yields several distillate products and a bottom product which is residual liquid material that could
not be vaporized under the following conditions and that is why we obtain as the end product.
Distillation is a process wherein a liquid or vapour mixture of two or more substances is separated into its
component fractions of desired purity, by the application and removal of heat. Distillation is based on the
fact that the vapour of a boiling mixture will be richer in the components that have lower boiling points.
Therefore, when this vapour is cooled and condensed, the condensate will contain more volatile
components. At the same time, the original mixture will contain more of the less volatile material.

Refinery process design calculations can be easily carried out as conventional chemical process design
calculations when various properties such as VABP, TBP to ASTM conversion and viceversa, molecular
weight, 0API and enthalpy have to be evaluated.
The design of a distillation column can be divided into the following steps:
Specify the degree of separation required: set product specifications.
Select the operating conditions: batch or continuous; operating pressure.
Select the type of contacting device: plates or packing.
Determine the stage and reflux requirements: the number of equilibrium stages.
Size the column: diameter, number of real stages.
Design the column internals: plates, distributors, packing supports.
Mechanical design: vessel and internal fittings.

6.7.3 Reflux Consideration

The reflux ratio, R, is normally defined as:

R = (flow returned as reflux)/ (flow of top product taken off)
The number of stages required for a given separation will be dependent on the reflux ratio used.
Total reflux is the condition when all the condensate is returned to the column as reflux: no product is
taken off and there is no feed. At total reflux the number of stages required for a given separation is the
minimum at which it is theoretically possible to achieve the separation.
The minimum reflux ratio is defined as the reflux ratio is reduced a pinch point will occur at which the
separation can only be achieved with an infinite number of stages. This sets the minimum possible reflux
ratio for the specified separation.
The optimum reflux or practical reflux ratios will lie somewhere between the minimum for the specified
separation and total reflux.

Baldauf et al. [70] investigated direct distillation of HDO oil (with ca. 0.6 wt% oxygen). The produced
gasoline fraction had an octane number (RON) of 62, which is low compared to 9298 for commercial
gasoline. The diesel fraction had a cetane number of 45, also being low compared to a minimum
standard of 51 in Europe [163]. The overall conclusion of this study therefore was that the fuel
product was not sufficient for the current infrastructure. Instead it has been found that further
processing of both HDO oil and zeolite cracking is needed for production of fuel; as for conventional
crude oil [125,164].