Design Strategy for Performance Enhancement of Vertical Plate Microdistillators

Microdevices have been actively implemented in chemical processes, such as mixing and reactions. However, microseparation devices, excluding extraction are still under development. In distillation, the use of microdevices has expected to improve separation performance, their large specific surface area enables a rapid vapor–liquid equilibrium for temperature gradients be easily realized. this study, improvements throughput product purities microdistillation devices were achieved ethyl acetate–toluene distillation. At low feedstock flow rates, acetate was successfully purified 99.5 wt%. Although performance decreased with increasing rate, by channel length, decrease suppressed even at high rates. The thickness also important, highest observed lowest 0.5 mm. A evaluation using HETP showed that efficiency seven times higher than conventional packed column distillators.