Ethanol Distillation And Ethanol Uses

Ethanol is becoming a very clear option for the alternative fuel market, as more and more countries start using and studying the ways to make ethanol use more popular, this is one kind of revolution that will change the fuel industry forever.

To have a better understanding of what ethanol distillation is, let’s get into the basics of ethanol.

Ethanol fast Facts

•Systematic Name: Ethanol
•Other Names: Ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, hydroxyethane, EtOH
•Molecular Formula: E2H6O
•Physically, ethanol may be described as a colorless, flammable, slightly toxic chemical compound that has a distinctive perfume-like smell.
•It is produced from sugar cane and used as automotive fuel in Brazil. Ethanol made out of corn, on the other hand, is being used widely as a gasoline additive and direct fuel in the United States. Straw, meanwhile, is being used to manufacture ethanol as well.
•Ethanol is currently the leading biofuel provider in Europe.

Ethanol Distillation

Most of us already have an idea on how distillation happens. Let’s have the production of distilled water as an example. When water is subjected to heat, it is expected that steam would conduct away from a tube. A tube looped and oriented downward and allowed to cool would yield condensed vapor and eventually, water.

For ethanol, simple distillation will not be enough. Fractional distillation would be the best choice. The latter is used for separating mixtures of liquids with varying boiling points - like water and alcohol.

To start the distillation of ethanol, consider the following steps:

1.Prepare a small beaker and/or a simple glass half-filled with the rather miscible mixture of water and alcohol.

2.Cover the beaker or the simple glass jug with a funnel or something similar, so that a balloon can be placed to suck air out of the beaker.

3.After some time, the alcohol vapor and the steam in the mixture just above the liquid in the beaker or glass will reach a state of equilibrium. This should be relative of temperature and even pressure of the environment.

4.With regard to equilibrium, change can no longer be observed in the vapor to liquid ratio in the water to alcohol ratio within either the vapor or liquid mixture.

5.However, because of alcohol’s higher volatility, the ratio of water to alcohol in the vapor state is greater than that of the ratio in liquid state.

6.The occurrence of liquid-against-vapor-states permits the distillation from an escalating concentration of alcohol from the water and alcohol mixture.

And finally, by having sequences of repeated evaporation as well as condensation, a higher alcohol concentration is achieved from the re-condensation of recent vapor state.

This is since the alcohol inside the vapor mixture is at a greater concentration than it was from the liquid mixture from which it was changed into a vapor state.