Anthoney wrote:I have a purpose built, sensitive, differential pressure sensor to cut the heat if the column starts to flood or puke. That might be enough to go with a design that has no visual feedback on the internal operation. What do you think Stilly?
There's an article on 'distillation tower flooding' that can be found in your local library. It discusses the problems with using pressure changes to measure column flooding — namely, that by the time the pressure drop registers, the column has already started to flood. If this holds true for hobby sized columns, then a sightglass is going to be a better way to monitor column flooding. But, in the absence of sightglasses, a pressure sensor is better than nothing. A particularly sensitive pressure sensor might be even better. I'm not sure.
Anthoney wrote:Why not just pack it solid all the way up and make the most use of all the space?
If you're trying to produce neutral, then packing it solid might be an option. But then you've just got a packed column.
If the rave reviews about the quality of product that you get out of a trayed column are anything to go by (and I think they might be), there's something about how distillation occurs in trayed columns that sets them apart from packed columns. That 'something', I suspect, has to do with the fact that each tray acts as a radical distillation stage — quite different to the 'smooth' distillation that occur in a packed column.
If you pack a trayed column solid, you're increasing the efficiency of the column but you're also significantly changing how it functions. The question is whether by changing how it functions in order to make it more efficient you risk losing the very virtue of the trayed column: staged distillation.
:think: