Laboratory Essential Oil Distillation Equipment / Ethanol Fractional Distillation Machine

80 mm Diameter Molecular Distillation Equipment for CBD / THC / Hemp oi l/ Cannabissativa

—— Operation

Feed liquid is admitted into still under high vacuum, immediately spread into a very thin film and forced quickly down the evaporation surface. Heated walls and high vacuum drive the more volatile components (distillate) to the external condenser as the less volatile components (residue) continue down the cylinder. The resulting fractions, thus separated, exit through individual discharge outlets. Depending on application, the desired product is either the distillate or the residue fraction. Small amounts of condensable low MW compounds collect in cold trap upstream of vacuum system. For high solvent loads, an optional external condenser may be installed immediately downstream of the still.

The process of distillation when carried out in an apparatus designed for high vacuum in order to allow the molecules escape from the warm liquid into a cooler surface inside a condenser before coming in contact with other molecules and finally settle down into the liquid is known as molecular distillation. The molecular distillation is applied to purify low volatile substances.

The molecular distillation was developed before the Second World War to distill heat sensitive natural products like vitamins. These process were carried out in United States under Dr Hickman, the inventor of the method. He derived this method with a simple lab equipment. A thin layer of product was heated in a tray under high vacuum and the vapour was condensed on the surrounding cold surface.

The operating conditions were set in a manner that the free path of the molecules was longer than the distance between heated and cooled surface. The probability of a vapour molecule colliding with another molecule was less than the probability to travel without collision to cold surface.