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[AlexRM]

Hi all,

I am currently designing a flash distillation to separate a mixture of methanol and biodiesel.  One of the standard methods for doing this to use vacuum distillation, but I am not sure how to go about finding the optimum combination of temperature/pressure.  As I reduce the pressure to absolute vacuum, I don't need as much heat to achieve the separation.  My vessel is small so wall thickness/vacuum vessel construction is not a problem.  I plan to generate the vacuum by condensing the methanol rather than using a compressor, so I don't have to worry about compressor duty, and the condenser duty does not really change much with temperature/pressure.  

What is stopping me going to full vacuum?    

Any tips on the cost/benefit of vacuum systems would be appreciated.

Cheers.