(48a) Jim Fair: Distillation -- High Expectations

Jim taught by example and led us to do great technical work: meaning right technically; right at  the details; and well documented.
                                       Paraphrased from Roy Penney – who worked on  Jim’s Team

Jim encouraged us to be the best.  He also encouraged technical hobbies.  Distillation was his. 

If Jim could speak to “distillation, as if it lived and breathed and give it some of his good advice”,  he would probably tell it that it had been richly endowed by god and should be the best separation technique.  Jim was the son of a Presbyterian minister as well as an exceptionally positive leader -- who sought the best from everyone and everything.  

He would detail the rich endowment of distillation and maybe sketch a picture:
 - large density difference between phases and high interfacial tension, which make it easy to obtain efficient multistage processing
 - relatively low viscosity – which corresponds with high diffusivity
 - utilization of thermal driving forces hidden behind the flowing streams
 - 100 year old long learning curve
 - fully calculable – except for ….

Be the best  to an engineer means to be lowest cost in both capital and energy
Sometimes accountants and managers mistake the big size of distillation columns for high cost. 

Engineers need to look inside the vessels as well as into our old thermo books. This paper speaks to thermodynamic efficiency and how it is easily lost by low expectations. 

It also speaks to optimized use of capital.  It especially looks outside the big vessel to the support systems for distillation like heat exchangers – which, at optimum, usually dominate both capital and energy. 

It even tells a few stories of how easy it is to make mistakes.