What is the general strategy for pilot plant testing of distillation? i.e. Of course, the pilot plant column can be considerably smaller in diameter than the production column but is there any way to scale down height as well?
e.g. Let's consider a packed distillation column. The HETP of lab / pilot units seems approximately the same as the larger industrial column so (say) your target column needs 80 theoretical stages, the same height is needed for the pilot column as the final production column?
Am I missing the obvious? How does one validate distillation at pilot plant?
PS. Regarding the need to validate at pilot-plant: The components are not well validated petrochemicals with good VLE data. This is a fine chemical distillation with multiple impurities which are not well characterized for VLE.
Ergo, there is a simulation for number of stages needed but we have limited confidence in it.