Volatiles separator and concentrator

摘要

An apparatus and method for stripping volatiles from a feed stream and concentrating the volatiles in the overhead vapors forming a condensate product and simultaneously producing a low percent volatiles outlet stream as a concentrate product. The volatiles separator and concentrator, ("VSC"), unit has many applications in the reduction and the concentration of voiatiles in the beverage, fuel, and industrial alcohol industries, as well as in chemical applications for removing or stripping volatiles from heat sensitive feed substrates which require low temperatures and a short residence time to prevent degradation of the product. For heat sensitive applications, the VSC unit utilizes a short feed stream preheat contact time in combination with turbulent high velocity flow to separate and concentrate volatile and nonvolatile components at temperatures below 100 DEG F. utilizing flash vaporization for volatiles separation with reboil capability to adjust volatiles concentration in the residue and product. The application of high vacuum in the range of 27'' to 28.5'' of Hg further enhances volatiles separation by allowing lower processing temperatures and reduced residence time. The low pressures and temperatures are energy efficient and serve to minimize heat degradation producing a non-heat sensitized product/residue. Because of the design of the equipment utilized in the VSC unit, a plurality of VSC modular units can be connected in a series providing a processing system having compact dimensions for vacuum or atmospheric operations. Combining multiple VSC units with columns utilizing the principals provides a means for fractional or selective distillation.