Talk:Azeotropic distillation

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This section requires some re-writes. The ethanol-water separation is not really that sensitive to pressure. Methanol-methyl acetate is, and that would be a better example. Also, the comment that you try to make the overhead composition in pressure swing to be equal to a pure component is also wrong. You just want the azeotrope to move so you can reycle it between two columns, one at a higher pressure and a lower one. I will try and make these changes in the future.

[edit] Ethanol purification

This page and the Ethanol currently seem to disagree on what distillation of ethanol-water can do. From the ethanol page:

Fractional distillation can concentrate ethanol to 96% volume; the mixture of 96% ethanol and 4% water is an azeotrope with a boiling point of 78.2 °C, and cannot be further purified by distillation.

From this page:

Ethanol is distilled to 96%, then run over a molecular sieve which absorbs water from the mixture. The concentration is now above 96% and can be further distilled.

I don't see how these can both be true. (Is this page a typo? (can't => can) Nahaj 14:09, 18 April 2006 (UTC)