History

The invention of the multiple effect evaporator is generally credited to Norbert Rillieux.
Rillieux developed a multiple pan evaporation system for use in sugar refining. Rillieux
was born in Louisiana and trained in France. Most of his working career was spent in
the U.S., although he later returned to Europe where he is buried in the famous Pere
Lachaise cemetery in Paris. Rillieux's achievements were little acknowledged during his
lifetime, because according to the laws of the time he was "a free person of color." He
was also the first cousin, once removed, of the painter Edgar Degas.

Concepts
Evaporation is a special case of heat transfer to a boiling liquid. This particular heat transfer
application is so common and important that it is treated as a separate unit operation.
The intent is to concentrate a non-volatile solute from a solvent, usually water. This is done by
boiling off the solvent. Concentration by evaporation is normally stopped before the solute
begins to precipitate; if not, the operation is better considered ascrystallization.
Evaporation is usually treated as the separation of a liquid mixture into a liquid product
(concentrate or thick liquor) and a vapor byproduct, although in special cases such as water
treating and desalination, the vapor is the product instead of the thick liquor.
Evaporation has its limitation to system with non-volatile solutes.It is similar to drying in that both
drive off volatiles, but is different in that the product is a liquid. Evaporation differs from
distillation because both components in a distillation system are volatile. Evaporation normally
produces a single vapor fraction, distillation several.
An evaporator consists of a heat exchanger for boiling the solution and a means to separate the
vapor from the boiling liquid. Different types are categorized by the length and alignment
(horizontal or vertical) of the evaporator tubes. The evaporation tubes may be located inside or
outside of the main vessel where the vapor is driven off.
Because many materials cannot tolerate high temperatures, evaporators often operate at
reduced pressure so that the boiling point will also be reduced.
In many (most?) cases, evaporators operate under a vacuum. This means that a vacuum pump
or jet ejector vacuum system is required on the last effect.
Evaporators are commonly used in the inorganic and organic chemical, pulp and paper, and
food industries (especially sugar). Examples are the concentration of fruit juices and of NaOH.


Types and Uses
Rotary Evaporator
A rotary evaporator is a device used in chemical laboratories for the efficient and gentle removal
of solventsfrom samples by evaporation.


Centrifugal Evaporator
A centrifugal evaporator is a device used in chemical and biochemical laboratories for the
efficient and gentle evaporation of solvents from many samples at the same time, and samples
contained in microtitre plates. If only one sample required evaporation then a rotary evaporator
is most often used. The most advanced modern centrifugal evaporators not only concentrate
many samples at the same time, they eliminate solvent bumping and can handle solvents with
boiling points of up to 220 C. This is more than adequate for the modern high throughput
laboratory.