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DEFINING STILL PARAMETERS USING CHEMCAD BATCH DISTILLATION MODEL FOR MODELING FRUIT SPIRITS DISTILLATIONS
Author(s) -
CLAUS MICHAEL J.,
BERGLUND KRIS A.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of food process engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.507
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1745-4530
pISSN - 0145-8876
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-4530.2008.00251.x
Subject(s) - distillation , batch distillation , process engineering , process (computing) , tray , computer science , fractional distillation , production (economics) , continuous distillation , pulp and paper industry , chemistry , chromatography , engineering , mechanical engineering , economics , macroeconomics , operating system
Fruit spirits production has always been and continues to be heavily dependent upon the sensory evaluation of the distillate by the distiller. Sensory fatigue can lead to many problems of analysis for the distiller during production. As such, it is desirable to have a method of analysis that is not heavily dependent upon the senses of the distiller. Modeling of the distillation process is difficult because of the number of components present in the fruit mash and distillate, as well as because of the constantly changing thermodynamic interactions present on each tray as a result of the batch distillation process. This paper identifies a method for identifying the still parameters needed to perform predictive modeling. This involves setting a distillate flow rate and reflux ratio, as well as time or volume cutoff frames of analysis. After identifying the still characteristics, it is possible to model the distillation using the CHEMCAD batch distillation program.PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS Utilizing computer modeling in distilled spirits production has the potential to improve quality control and reduce errors in the distillation process.