What is simple distillation?

What is simple distillation?

Author: chemical engineer

The water and energy crisis are not a newer threat to the world. Because of these water crises, the trend of using treated water is raising. The water is treated by several means including simple distillation, reverse osmosis etc. Nature has provided us the great resources of pure water, which are not only safe for human consumption, but also for the other creatures of this world. But unfortunately, because of the growing pollution rate, the environmental threats are the alarming situation for the world.

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These environmental threats are also related to the safe water resources depletion, like the melting of glaciers, acid rains, river water pollution etc. Because of this depletion of natural resources of pure water, the need and demand of treated water has raised with in some past decades, in order to meet the requirements of the world's pure water needs.

Although there are numbers of water treatment technologies, including the electro-dialysis, reverse osmosis, filtration, ultra filtration, simple distillation etc, but whenever we talk about the water treatment methods, then the first technique, which comes in the minds of a common person, is the distillation. Now what is distillation? Distillation definition is simply the purification or separation method, used not only for the purification of water, but also for the separation of individual components from the very complex mixtures on the industrial large scale.

This article is about what is distillation advantage for the water purification sector, so only the distillation definition and working criteria related to the purification of water will be discussed. Although there are number of different distillation techniques, but the driving principle (or working principle) of all of them is same, i.e. purification on the basis of the difference in boiling points of the components. The home water purification by boiling the water is the most common example of the simple distillation. On industrial scale, the water is boiled up to its boiling point; once the water reaches its boiling point, it starts evaporating and vaporizing, these evaporated water vapors are collected, and condensed with condensers, to get the pure water. The remaining slurry in the distillation column (including water and impurities) is drained under the environmental protection agency (EPA) rules and regulations.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/science-articles/what-is-simple-distillation-5663494.html

About the Author

I am a chemical engineer by profession. I like to be in touch with all the latest advancements and technologies in the field of process engineering, and love to share my knowledge and exeriences with other people. I hope that you people will like my articles.

What is Polymerization?

What is Polymerization and degree of polymerization?

Author: chemical engineer

Generally, people don't have enough idea about polymerization processes, or what benefits does polymerization offer in this high tech era. Polymerization can simply be explained as a chemical reaction, which occur between the smaller molecules and results in the larger molecules. Or in more technical terms, polymerization can be defined as a chemical process, in which lower molecular weight molecules (named as monomers for polymerization processes) react together to form higher molecular weight molecules (known as polymers).

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Degree of polymerization is the term, which is used to calculate the number of monomers consumed to form the specific number of polymers, i.e. degree of polymerization is simply the ratio of the monomers to the polymers.

These monomers can either be homo-atoms (i.e. the molecules belong to the same group), or can be the hetero-atoms (i.e. different types of molecules – belongs to different groups). The polymerization process, which occurs between the homo-atoms, is known as addition polymerization, or chain growth polymerization; while the polymerization which occurs between the hetero-atoms based monomers is called as condensation polymerization or step growth polymerization.

The reason behind giving these names to the polymerization processes is very simple. In addition polymerization processes, the monomers usually are unsaturated homo-molecules (i.e. having extra inner linkages in forms of double or triple bonds), when the reaction starts, these extra inner bonds of monomers break and form chain like structures with other monomers in the process; which means that the number of atoms or molecules present as the reactants are same as those of the products, which is why, the empirical formula remains same on both sides of the reaction (reactants and products).

In condensation polymerization, hetero-atoms (i.e. different monomers – belong to different molecules) the monomers don't simply add up together. When the reaction starts, the smaller molecules leave the process (such as water molecules evaporates during the reaction), leaving condensed type process parameters; so, the amount or composition of polymerization product is not same as that of reactants, so the empirical formula of condensation polymers is not same as that of the monomers.

Polymerization process has great importance according to the recycling perspectives too. Many of the recyclable materials are produced with the help of any of the polymerization process. For an instance, plastic materials can be taken as perfect examples of the recyclable materials. Plastics can be produced with the help of polymerization processes.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/science-articles/what-is-polymerization-and-degree-of-polymerization-6522274.html

About the Author

I am a chemical engineer by profession. I like to be in touch with all the latest advancements and technologies in my field. Whether its about viscosity of water, or heat transfer coefficient, I love to increase my knowledge.

What is electrostatics?

What is electrostatics?

Author:Neeraj Kathuria

The branch of Physics, which deals with the study of charges at rest, the forces between the static charges, electric fields and potentials due to these charges is called Electrostatics or Static Electricity or even Frictional Electricity.

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The term 'electrostatics' means the charges are either stationary or move very slowly with respect to each other. In this chapter, we will study the charges, their effects on each other and on the surrounding charges. The discussion and determination of quantities like electric force, electric potential and electric field etc. will be important definitely at various points due to different kinds of charge distribution because various important conclusions can be drawn from their values. Charge distribution on a given body is very important for the measurement of above quantities. For example, charge distribution can be on a line, on a surface and on a 3-D body. It may be uniform and non-uniform also. According to the shape of the body, charge on the body, we can have various values of electric force, potential and field at a given point. It is very important to say that the values of above quantities are responsible for various phenomena.

The two types of charges i.e. positive and negative were chosen arbitrarily by Benjamin Franklin. In conductors, the electrons are loosely bound so it is easy to remove electrons by using friction method, say by rubbing a given conducting rod with some rough material. On the other hand, insulators do not lose electrons easily, hence it is easier to put charge on them to make them charged.

The various phenomenon of electrostatics find industrial applications. Some of them are electrostatic paint spraying, powder coating, flyash collection in chimneys, photocopying etc.

Many more uses of the electrostatics are given as below.

The electric field inside a hollow conductor is zero so electrical circuit can be saved from any external charge or electric field by keeping it in a hollow conductor. It is worth mentioning that electrostatic force is mechanical force and it is used to give kinetic energy to charge particles. In an atom nucleus exerts centripetal force on electrons and they revolve in circular orbits around the nucleus. The atom is stable because of constancy of this force between nucleus and electrons and keeps the electrons at a constant distance from the centre of the nucleus. Sparking also occurs due to the electrostatic force between the opposite charges. The electrostatic force is also a reason for binding atoms together, molecules together to form solids and even the human being is an assembly of a nuclei and electrons held together by this force. So hopefully I think, now you understand how important is this electrostatic force, which is a very strong force and roughly 1036 times stronger than the gravitational force.

We can still elaborate more interesting applications of various phenomena of electrostatics. For example, command signal was sent from earth to the space craft voyager-2 by the help of oscillating motion of electrons.

A host of other phenomena and effects of electric field can be invented. We will not miss to highlight some of them, which have already been invented. For example, a shark can detect the weak electric field produced by the flatfish even if the latter is hiding itself by burrowing into the bottom soil. Similarly, the presence of human beings in water can be detected by shark because any scratch on the human body produces weak electric field.

We can even make the surrounding air conducting by a strong electric field and this is called electric break down or electrical discharge. Very interesting it is to observe the sparks in the air surrounding a charged metal cap. This is due to ionisation of the surroundings air. It happens only if the strength of the electric field is too large. In the beginning it has been rightly said that strength of the electric field matters so this example is very correct to explain the effect of electric field.

In industry also electric field finds beautiful uses. For example, when electric field exerts a force on charged ash in electrostatic precipitator then the ash is collected in the stack and not allowed to go out in the atmosphere and pollute it. This is how the electrostatic force can prevent the atmosphere from pollution. We can still go on telling more and more examples of the uses of electrostatics. The brilliant display in the sky stretching over few kilometers and delivering around 1000 amperes of current from clouds to the earth is a fine example of the strong electrostatic force between the oppositely charged particles. The overhead cloud system creates strong electric field near our heads and our hair strands extended along the field. Don't you understand that the above examples are based on the effects of charges at rest or in slow motion.

Capacitor is a wonderful device, which has been devised by the basic principle of electrostatics. It is used in almost all electronic equipments like oscillators, amplifiers, rectifiers, modulators, demodulators, calculators and definitely in computers. It is a device, which is used to help a patient suffering from ventricular fibrillation (a kind of heart attack). The heart muscles are given shocks by 20 A of current which transfers about 200 joules of energy in about 2 mile seconds. A special electronic circuit greatly increases the potential difference of capacitor there by increasing the electrical energy of the capacitor. This is really a wonderful application of electrostatics.

Thanks to the scientists who really did so well in initiating endless efforts for making this branch of physics so applicative and so important. To wind it up I would say this branch of physics is only the game which positive and negative charges play sitting on various bodies in different postures and spreading their influence in atmosphere, industries, research etc.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/online-education-articles/what-is-electrostatics-6526605.html

About the Author

Neeraj Kathuria is an active article writer who is fond of sharing educational advices to help students to improve confidence and help them perform better at school and colleges. He has presented many articles on distance learning program for class xii, cbse test at home, test series for class neet and much more.