What is Vacuum Distillation & How Does it Work?
Vacuum distillation is a process used by industries that deal with liquids that may contain various compounds, such as chemical, beverage, food, oil, and pharmaceutical companies. It's used to separate compounds using differing temperatures and pressures.
For companies, they may use large amounts of water or liquids that can contain various chemicals, toxic substances, gases, extracts, crude oils, and other compounds that are not wanted for processes and require vacuum distillation. Learn more about what is vacuum distillation, how the process works, its advantages, and its applications.
What is Vacuum Distillation?
Vacuum distillation separates compounds that are in various liquids using a vacuum process. It is commonly used when compounds are difficult to separate due to having very high boiling points. Due to this situation, it can be costly for companies to run heating systems that can reach these high boiling points. Instead, a vacuum process is used to create a vapor pressure that impacts the compounds that have a lower vapor pressure to evaporate.
How Does the Process Work?
The vacuum distillation process begins with a distillation unit and a liquid mixture where the compounds all have differing boiling points. The distillation unit lowers the vapor pressure inside the container along a packing column that is sprayed with the liquid. Within the packing column, the mixture begins to experience a vacuum effect as the created pressure is lower than the vapor pressure in the liquid mixture.
The compounds that react to the lower pressure begin to burn off and evaporate. Depending on the purpose of vacuum distillation, the remaining liquid may be recovered for other processing purposes.
In other vacuum distillation setups, there is no packing column. Instead, the liquid is sprayed into the container as the vacuum is created throughout. With more surface area coming into contact with the vacuum vapor pressure, the lower-pressure compounds separate and evaporate.
Applications for Vacuum Distillation Systems
Vacuum distillation may be used for liquids that become contaminated during the manufacturing or agricultural process and must be cleaned before being placed back into use or disposed of. Wastewater treatment is also another common application where companies use vacuum distillation. For example, metal processing and electronic device manufacturing may use water to extract certain minerals and raw metals. Vacuum distillation is used to treat the wastewater after the metals are filtered out.
Oil refineries rely on vacuum distillation to perform separations between long-chain hydrocarbons. Industries such as food and beverage may use this process to extract the essences from plants. Other companies may use vacuum distillation to purify gases such as nitrogen and oxygen in their applications or the separation of chemicals.
Key Advantages of Vacuum Distillation
A main advantage of vacuum distillation is the safe separation of compounds within liquids that may be volatile or explosive. By impacting the vapor pressure without adding very high temperatures, these compounds can be safely removed.
When compared to steam distillation, both methods work well with heat-sensitive liquids. However, vacuum distillation is a much faster process than steam distillation which must use a condensation process for both the steam and the liquid.
Other benefits include energy savings, as this process does not rely on constantly using the heating system at raised temperatures. Instead, a lower heat can be used due to the vacuum process. It can effectively purify liquids of hazardous and toxic substances that cannot enter the environment in wastewater. This process increases the safety of wastewater entering the process as well as reclaimed liquids that may later be reused in industrial processes.
Vacuum distillation is an efficient process for small and large manufacturers to safely handle, separate, and purify liquids in various processes. You gain more liquid yield, as only the compounds with the lower boiling point are evaporated from the main liquid stream. This process allows for greater volume recovery and less waste while also not requiring the liquid to undergo secondary separation processes.
Components of a Vacuum Distillation System
A vacuum distillation system consists of a vacuum pump to reduce the vapor pressure in the unit. There is a condenser that takes the vaporized compounds and returns them to a liquid state. A reaction vessel is used to perform the process and to heat up the liquid mixture. For some units, a fractionating column is used to further purify the liquid during separation. A receiving vessel is utilized to collect the purified liquid.
To move the liquid into the reaction vessel, spray nozzles are used. These nozzles are essential to break up the liquid into even droplets through atomization to allow the vacuum pressure to more effectively evaporate the unwanted compounds. With a well-engineered spray nozzle, you obtain uniform droplets that help speed up the vacuum distillation process while ensuring that fewer unwanted compounds remain in the liquid. With the liquid broken into droplets, there is more surface area that can interact with the vapor pressure from the vacuum pump.
How Lechler Can Improve Your Vacuum Distillation System
Here at Lechler, we offer a wide range of spray nozzle products for various industrial applications such as vacuum distillation. Our nozzles are made from the highest quality metals that are anti-clogging and can resist corrosion. This design ensures that liquids that may contain varying particulates and compounds can be ejected into the reaction vessel efficiently. You obtain small to very fine water droplets from atomizing spray nozzles. These atomized droplets help to speed up the distillation process to ensure an efficient separation and evaporation process.
Due to varying industries having specially designed processes and vacuum distillation systems, Lechler offers both turnkey and customized spray nozzle solutions. We learn more about your industry and applications to engineer and fabricate a nozzle that best fits into workplace setups. Obtain spray nozzles that provide uniform droplet sizes, desirable flow rates, and free-flowing designs by contacting our company today.