Discussion

Generally distillation is a process where liquid-liquid separation process occurs. This process can be

carried out in the manner or continuous or batch. In this experiment it was conducted on the continuous

manner where the mixture of liquid are fed continuously into the process. The separation process took

advantage on the different volatility of a component where more volatile component will evaporate

faster and separated from the mixture. There are many different factors that affect the distillation

column in term of number of theoretical plate such as reflux ratio which is kept constant throughout the

experiment.

The aim of this experiment is to study the effect of feed temperature on the number of theoretical

plates in a continuous distillation operating at constant reflux. This is done by varying the feed

temperature to 28°C and 32°C and reflux ratio at 1:1 which is kept constant throughout the process.

At 28°C the refractive index of obtain for distillate and bottom are 1.3377 and 1.3309 respectively.

Analysis using murphree efficiency are conducted and found out that the of theoretical plated that are

need for the process is 10. Meanwhile for 32°C the refractive index for the distillate and bottom are

1.3391 and 1.7311 respectively. After murphree efficiency analysis, it is found out that the number of

theoretical plate need for the process was 7. This show that the higher the feed temperature, the lower

the number of theoretical plate needed for the process. This Is because preheated mixture reduce the

amount of energy need to heat up the mixture to the desired boiling point. Feed temperature is one of

the major factors in influencing the overall heat balance of a distillation column system. Increased feed

enthalpy can help reduce the required energy input from the reboiler at the same degree of

separation.[1]

[1] Soun Ho Lee., Michael J. Binkley., 2011. OPTIMIZE DESIGN FOR DISTILLATION FEED
http://www.gtctech.com/optimize-design-for-distillation-feed/
Conclusion

At feed temperature of 28°C and 32°C the number of theoretical plate are 10 and 7 respectively which

show the effect of feed temperature could lower the number of theoretical plate for the distillation

process. This is due to the reduction of energy requirement to achieve boiling point of the particular

component in the mixture. Which shows the feed temperature is one of the major factors in the

determination of ideal condition for distillation column process.