Overview of Project

This project involves us to use distillation as a method to separate the Ethanol/Water solution to the wanted purity. The picture on the left shows the distillation unit used by us to separate the Ethanol/Water solution. The solution was poured into the feed tank which had a tube connected to the heat exchanger. The solution was pumped into the heat exchanger by a feed pump and it was then transferred to the columns.The solution was then boiled and the lower boiling point solution (Ethanol) was converted to its gaseous form and was then to the condenser, which then went back to liquid state in to the top product receiver. The condenser was using room temperature water to cool the gaseous substance. The bottom product receiver received the product which was mostly water. Both the top and bottom product receiver contained mostly Ethanol and mostly Water solution respectively.