Murphree Vapor Efficiency of a Minute Amount of Water in Azeotropic Mixture of Hexane and Ethanol

Abstract

Distillation experiments with a hexane-ethanol azeotropic mixture containing a minute amount of water were performed with an Oldershow-type column. The reflux ratio was fixed at about eight and the distillate was returned to the still.
From the ratios of the mole fraction of water in the distillate to that in the bottoms, the Murphree vapor efficiencies of water were determined. They ranged from 0.078 to 0.134 and were not influenced by the vapor rate.