The short path distillation refers to a kind of evaporation and distillation equipment. As a type of thermodynamic separation technology, the equipment can evaporate components with low boiling points by utilizing that the boiling point of each component in the mixed liquid or liquid-solid mixture is different, and then condense the material to separate the whole components. It is the combination of evaporation and condensation unit operations as well as a kind of liquid-liquid separation technology.
Advantages of Short Path Distillation
- Short path distillation is easy to install and operate, which is quite convenient for many users, even people who use it at home. And people don’t need spend so much money on the installation and operation, which is very economical.
- Short path distillation can distill heat sensitive substances, which is widely used in many fields. So short path distillation can be a nice tool in many fields for different applications.
- Short path distillation can distill many different kinds of substances that traditional distillation equipment can not. Therefore, short path distillation is a relatively advanced equipment.
- The whole short path distillation system works under low pressure environment, which lowers the boiling points of sample materials. Therefore, the heating source will be saved, which is quite energy-saving.
- As we all know, short path distillation works through evaporation. So if there is contaminants in the system, the evaporation and vaporization can clean them up.
- Short path distillation can distill two different kinds of substances at the same time, so it has a very high efficiency.
Disadvantages of Short Path Distillation
- As we all know, there is a relatively long distance compared with other distillation equipment in the short path distillation. Therefore, the evaporated substances can be left there.
- Short path distillation doesn’t have an automatic feeding system, while rotary evaporator has. Rotary evaporator has an automatic feeding system made by the pressure difference between the internal pressure and atmosphere pressure.
- Short path distillation has a high requirement toward the seal of glassware material. So users need to check the glassware seal before the beginning.
What Exactly is Distillation?
Technically, distillation is a thermodynamic separation process. It gets the low-boiling components evaporated through the different boiling points of the components in the mixed liquid or liquid-solid system, and then condenses to separate the entire component. Compared with other separation methods, such as extraction, filtration and crystallization, its advantage is that it does not require the use of other solvents than the system components, so as to ensure that no new impurities get in.
Through the distillation operation, the target product can be directly obtained, while other components such as absorption and extraction are also required.
