by RC Al » Mon Oct 16, 2023 8:16 am
Height for purity, width for speed
The 35 plates is a lofty goal and some of them can be replaced by using more reflux (and thereby more power)
Rules of thumb are that anything more than 30 times the diameter in a packed column is into diminishing returns territory ie not worth it, with 20 times diameter being a good place to start for efficiency.
20x 3" = 1.5m, 30x 3" = 2.25m
20x 2" = 1m, 30x 2" 1.5m
Packing performance/efficiency comes into it of course, spp -spiral prismatic packing is said to require (much) less height, but its a bit of a minefield to get the right size and its expensive.
The 3" would be ok with how much power you have, How tall is your roof?
If you're searching for very pure alcohol, count on running it more than once and pay attention to boiler abv, striped product run through at 10% vs run at 40% will be pretty different in flavour.