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College of Engineering
Chemical Engineering Department
M a ni l a
Experiment no. 2
STEAM DISTILLATION
Submitted by:
Lavilles, Francis Dominic
Lee Gee Hyun
Lojica, Kathlyn Joyce M.
INTRODUCTION:
Immiscible liquids are liquids that do not mix to give a single phase. When two
immiscible liquids are boiled, they will boil at temperature lower than the boiling point of
either of the pure liquids. Steam distillation is a useful process of separating immiscible
liquids. In this process, a liquid which is immiscible with water is distilled using steam.
Steam distillation works on the principle that in a mixture, there is a point where
two liquids become immiscible. In this mixture system, the total vapor pressure deviates
from Raoult's Law prediction. Adding the vapor pressure of two liquids comprising the
binary mixture system will result to vapor pressure of the system. The mole fraction of
each liquid in the binary system will not affect the vapor pressure. Also at the boiling
point of the mixture, dividing the partial pressures of the compound in the vapor will
result to the ratio of the vapor pressures of the pure liquids. In this experiment, steam
distillation of the toluene - water system was done. The study aims to examine the steam
distillation process of the toluene - water system.
There are also advance ways of performing the distillation of mixtures like
benzene and toluene.(Phiyanalinmat, 2015). Some advance methods use algorithms to
determine the optimum reflux ratio (Abolpour and Mohebbi, 2014)
In mixtures that involve more than two components, more complicated processes
are needed in detection and separation of substances. A complex sample of benzene,
toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene requires a hybrid separation and detection device for
analysis as examined in recent researches (Iglesias et. al. , 2009). When benzene and
toulene mix with other comopund like xylene, the concentrations are dtermined using
advance process such as High Performance Liquid Chromatography-UV detection
(HPLC-UV) (Bahrami, et. al.)
Process simulation has been applied in a recent study to design the benzene-toluene
distillation (Phiyanalinmat, 2015). Another study presented modeling and simulation of a
benzene recovery process by extractive distillation (Brondani, et. al., 2015)
METHODOLOGY:
A steam distillation set-up was prepared. Eighty milliliters of toluene was placed
in the round bottom flask and water was filled in the distilling flask up to half of the
flask. The distilling flask was heated until the water boiled. When it started to boil, the
flame has been lowered just enough to continue the boiling. The first distillate (2-3mL)
was disposed. The temperature was recorded and the receiver was placed back under the
adapter. The distillation and recording of temperature was continued until the distillate in
the receiver was 2.5ml, 5ml, 7.5ml, 10ml, 12.5ml, 15ml, 17.5ml, 20ml, 22.5ml, 25ml.
Distillation was stopped when the collected distillate had reached 25ml. The distillates
were cooled and were left to separate fully. Each of the distillate were transferred in the
graduated cylinder to measure the volume of water and toluene. The data for vapor
pressure of toluene and water in different temperatures (40c,50c,60c,70c,80c,90c) was
obtained from the handbook. The vapor pressures of the mixture at those temperatures are
computed. The vapor pressures of toluene-water and the mixture was plotted. The
theoretical boiling point of the mixture was determined from the plot. The theoretical
composition of the distillate was also obtained from the plot.
The pressure v.s temperature graph of toluene and water mixture was made after
applying Raoult's Law to the mixture. As the temperature increases, the pressure also
increases for toluene, water and mixture. The values of the pressure for the mixture were
between the values of the pressure of toluene and water.
The use of steam distillation in extracting inorganic liquids has many advantages.
In the steam distillation process, the water vapor transfer small amounts of the vaporized
substance to the condensation flask where the separation of condensed liquids occurs.
This allows easy collection. Normal distillation of inorganic liquids will require high
temperature. Some of these molecules will be broken up by heating at high temperature.
Using steam distillation avoids this because the required temperature is low.
It is not possible to carry out steam distillation at 100 c because the boiling point
of the water is 100 degree celcius so the water will boil if the temperature exceeds 100
degree celcius. In steam distillation, the pressure of the two components must add up to
1atm.
Table 1: Temperature and vapour pressure of water, toluene, and the mixture.
500
400
pressure
300 toluene
200 water
mixture
100
0
0 20 40 60 80 100
Temperature
In the conduct of experiment, the process of steam distillation was observed. The
steam distillation of the binary system of toluene and water was examined. A plot of
pressure versus temperature for toluene, water and the mixture was made and was
studied.
The researchers recommended that careful measures must be taken so that there will
be no leakage during the distillation process. This must be done in order to get better
results.
REFERENCES:
1. Zekovic Z.P., Lepojevic Z.D., Mujic I.O., 2009, Laurel Extracts Obtained by Steam
Distillation, Supercritical Fluid and Solvent Extraction. Journal of Natural Products. Vol.
2, pp 104-109
2. Amenaghawon N.A., Okhueleigbe K.E., Ogbeide S.E., and Okieimen C.O. 2014.
Modelling the Kinetics of Steam Distillation of Essential Oils from Lemon Grass
(Cymbopogon Spp.)International Journal of Applied Science and Engineering 2014. 12,2:
pp 107-115
3. Iglesias R.A., TsowF ., Wang R., Forzani E.S., Tao N,. 2009 Hybrid Separation and
Detection Device for Analysis of Benzene, Toluene, Ethylbenzene, and Xylenes in
Complex Samples. Journal of Analytical Chemistry, 2009, 81 (21), pp 8930–8935
4. Abolpour B., Mohebbi A,. 2014. Optimization of the reflux ratio of benzene-toluene
stage distillation columns by the Cuckoo algorithm. Petroleum Science, 2014, Vol. 11,
Issue 3, pp 446-453
5. Mulvaney J., 2012. Essential Oils and Steam Distillation. Journal of the New Zealand
Association of Medical Herbalists 2012
7. Gamarra F.M.C, Sakanaka L.S., Tambourgi E.B., Cabral F.A., 2006. Influence on the
Quality of Essential Lemon (Citrus aurantifolia) oil by Distillation Process. Brazilian
Journal of Chemical Engineering, 2006, Vol 32, No. 01, pp 283-291
8. Bahrami A., Mahjub H., Sadeghian M., Golbabaei F., 2011. Determination of
Benzene, Toluene and Xylene (BTX) Concentrations in Air Using HPLC Developed
Method Compared to Gas Chromatography.International Journal of Occupational
Hygiene 2011
9. Phiyanalinmat S., 2015. Design of Benzene-Toluene Distillation for the Minimum
Energy Consumption by Chemical Process Simulation. Department of Inustrial
Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Thailand. 17th Regional Symposium on chemical
Engieering.
10. Brondani L.B., Flores G.B., Soares R.P., 2015. Modeling and Simulation of a
Benzene Recovery Process by Extractive Distillation. Brazilian Journal of Chemical
Engineering, 2015, Vol. 32, No. 01, pp. 283 - 291
APPENDIX:
1344.8
log10 (PmmHg ) = 6.95464 −
40℃ + 219.482
PmmHg = 59.16 mmHg