Issues regarding the reboiler of the distillation tower
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I don’t quite understand why the device used for heating the bottom of a distillation tower is not called a heater, but rather a \"reboiler\" or \"refluxer\". What does this \"re\" or \"reflux\" refer to? I am not a chemical engineering professional; please ask experts to clarify these questions!
It simply means that the boiling state has been reached again; it’s just a name. There’s no need to worry about it – it’s enough to know what its purpose is. Otherwise, one would have to ask why it’s called a distillation tower and not a vaporization tower or a separation tower. There’s no need to get stuck on such details
The bottom of the tower is called a reboiler, and the top is called a cooler; in fact, both are used for heat exchange. A reboiler, as the name implies, is used to separate substances that are being reboiled.
The heavy components at the bottom of the tower are in a vaporized state； To evaporate, one needs to keep boiling, right~~ It’s just a name.
This reboiler is named in contrast to the top condenser; the bottom heater converts the liquid phase at the bottom of the tower into a gas phase, which then goes to the top where it condenses back into a liquid and flows back to the bottom of the tower, entering the bottom heater (reboiler) once more where the liquid phase is converted back into a gas and sent to the top, in this cycle of continuous conversion between the bottom and the top of the tower. That’s why it’s called a reboiler. It means again, multiple times.
Isn’t this a chong boiler? It means the same as a reboiler, that is, to boil “again” or “once more”