What does batch distillation look like from an operator's perspective? Operator reads temperature data from a couple of sensors, translates it using temperature composition tables into more meaningful information. With this information, a drop of intuition and process knowledge operator modifies column controls.
Technically it is a simple task. However, reality brings some concerns into it.
Distillate quality depends not only on temperature, but also on pressure — both atmospheric and the one inside the cube. Batch distillation is not limited to a single product only — you can distill different products in different batches on the same hardware. It is very inconvenient and expensive to replace sensors for each type of input material. Thus, temperature is used as a universal measure for all cases, even though it is not the most accurate and convenient way.
In this situation human factor becomes critical. Product quality depends solely on the operator's experience. Every step has to be checked with the book. And even in this case operator can skip pressure correction data and other complicated calculations, leading to not so perfect distillation.
What Kettlebell can offer is a separate SW module that performs all the required calculations and offers not only raw temperatures, but also ready to analyse data. This module can be easily replaced for every batch, in order to fit current distillation needs.
