Patent Grant
10786750
The present application is related to commonly-owned U.S. Application Ser. No. 62/727,705 entitled SPRAY-ROTO DISTILLATION DEVICE, filed on Sep. 6, 2018, which application is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
The present invention relates to devices and methods of distillation.
Distillation is the process by which chemical separation is achieved through phase change. Distillation takes place by increasing the temperature, reducing the pressure, or both of a solid or liquid sample until some portion of the sample is vaporized. The vapor is then routed to a cooling section where condensation takes place and the vapor is changed back to a liquid or solid. The collected condensate is thus the purified collection of the lower boiling point component(s) of the original sample, leaving behind in the evaporating flask the higher boiling point component(s) that did not vaporize. A sample that contains more than one component can be purified through distillation if the difference in boiling points of the components is sufficient. Thus, the process may be repeated to further separate components at different boiling points.
Current rotary evaporator distillation machines, such as the one illustrated in
A machine capable of faster distillation uses a larger evaporating flask to achieve a larger effective surface area for distillation to take place. However, a large evaporating flask is not only unwieldy and hard to handle when removing the sample, it will also have more of the sample spread over this area. As the viscosity of the sample is increased, the distillation rate is reduced and the sample becomes stuck to the surface. Much of the sample may be lost or discarded due to the excessive labor in removing the sample from the large surface area. This presents a problem in that the rotary evaporator must be limited in size and is most often only used for smaller, non-industrial distillation processes.
Embodiments of the present invention provide a rotary evaporator distillation machine that includes a flash vaporization section in which the bulk of solvent is removed. By removing most of the solvent before it enters the evaporating flask, the entire system may be smaller in size but achieve distillation at a pace available only in much larger machines.
The described features, structures, or characteristics of the invention may be combined in any suitable manner in one or more embodiments. In the following description, numerous specific details are provided to provide a thorough understanding of embodiments of the invention. One skilled in the relevant art will recognize, however, that the invention can be practiced without one or more of the specific details, or with other methods, components and so forth. In other instances, well-known structures, materials, or operations are not shown or described in detail to avoid obscuring aspects of the invention.
As noted above, the heated pipe (5) is connected to the liquid manifold (6) on top of the device (30). Increased pressure inside the heated pipe (5) along with a reduction in pressure inside the device (30) causes the sample to quickly vaporize as it enters a lower pressure zone in a process referred to herein as “flash vaporization.” The remaining unvaporized liquid is then sprayed as fine droplets through a spray nozzle (8) onto the wall of the flash vaporization chamber (12). The flash vaporization chamber (12) includes an outer jacketed section (13), which may optionally also be wrapped with resistive heat tape that heats the walls of the chamber (12). Vapor created in the flash vaporization chamber (12) is then routed through another pipe (10) which connects to the outer jacketing of an additional flash vaporization chamber (11), with an additional spray nozzle (9). A valve (7) at the top of the liquid manifold (6) controls the proportional flow to each flash vaporization chamber (11), (12). The hot vapor transfers heat from any previous columns by flowing through the jacketing of any subsequent flash vaporization chambers and thus heating the walls of the chamber. The heated walls increase the vaporization of liquid sprayed on the inside of the column walls and also helps to partially condense the hot vapor flowing through the walls, which increases efficiency. This can be repeated with up to four different columns, or even more, increasing efficiency each time.
The vapor and condensed liquid from the additional vaporization chamber (11) is routed through a pipe (16) and to a cooling tube (14). The cooling tube (14) is preferably a metal cylinder approximately three to five inches in diameter with cooling fins (although it may be scaled up or down to fit a particular application). Vapor created from any other section of the device (30) is routed to the cooling tube (14), which ultimately connects to a condenser section (17). An external cooling device is used to cool the condenser section (17). One method of cooling is to use an external device to circulate cooling fluid through internal coils (15) within the condenser section (17). Vapor routed to this section (17) is condensed and the condensed material is then routed to a receiver flask (18) where it is collected.
Any material not vaporized in the flash vaporization chamber (12) is routed through another tube (19) into an evaporating flask (20). The flow into the evaporating flask (20) may be controlled with a valve (21). The evaporating flask (20) is partially submerged in the heating bath (4) and is heated and rotated. As the flask (20) is rotated, a thin film is deposited on the walls of the flask (20) and as it spins, gravity forces the sample down back into the lower portion of the flask (20). The motion of the sample reduces surface tension and increases the distillation rate for the last bit of solvent in the sample, which can be otherwise hard to remove, to desired levels. The vapor created in the evaporating flask (20) is routed through a vapor manifold (22) and into the condenser section (17), where it condenses and falls into the receiver flask (18) and is collected. The collected material can be collected by closing a receiver flask material valve (24) at the top and opening a drain port (23) at the bottom.
As will be appreciated, coils or pipes (2) inside the heat bath (4) should be formed from a material capable of good heat conductivity, such as a metal. Preferably, the sample is deposited onto the walls of the heated chamber (20) by spraying, whereby the small droplets would themselves have a relatively large surface area and heated vapors would partially distill the droplets as they are being sprayed onto the wall of the chamber (20), accelerating the vaporization process.
Multiple flash vaporization sections may be connected in series so that one feeds sample into the next. By feeding the hot vapor into another operating column the efficiency is increased each time. This process is also known as “multiple effect distillation.” The configurations for each column and vapor routing can be found in
Each flash vaporization chamber (11) may include five ports as illustrated in
A. The spray nozzle (9), through which pre-heated sample enters the chamber (11);
B. The drain port and tube (21) at the bottom of the chamber (11), through which concentrated sample exists;
C. An inner-column hot vapor outlet (10A) at the top, through which vaporized material exits;
D. A jacketing vapor inlet (10B), through which vaporized material from previous flash vaporization column enters; and
E. A jacketing vapor/liquid outlet (16) at the bottom of the chamber (11), through which condensed material exits.
The first flash vaporization column (11A,
As described above, liquid is fed into the liquid manifold and distributed to the sprayer of each flash vaporization chamber (11). Hot vapor from the inside of each chamber (11) may be fed into the top of the jacketing or the cooling tube (14). Hot vapor/liquid condensate in the outer jacketing may be fed into the bottom of each jacket, as illustrated in
In an alternative embodiments of the rotary evaporator distillation machine of the present invention, the material in the evaporating flask may be agitated using means other than the rotation of the flask itself. For example, a fixed flask that does not rotate may be used with an alternative agitation method, such as by introducing a stream of gas into the liquid sample. The bubbling action would agitate the sample, causing the surface tension to break and serve the same purpose as rotating the flask. Another example is the use of an externally produced magnetic field to rotate or move a magnetized bar which is sealed inside the evaporating flask, thereby causing the sample to be agitated.
Yet another method is to use a stirring mechanism that rotates a shaft with stirring blades inside the flask, as illustrated in
The description of the present invention has been presented for purposes of illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or limited to the invention in the form disclosed. Many modifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art. The embodiment was chosen and described in order to best explain the principles of the invention, the practical application, and to enable others of ordinary skill in the art to understand the invention for various embodiments with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated.
| Number | Name | Date | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20170252668 | Adjabeng | Sep 2017 | A1 |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62727705 | Sep 2018 | US |
