A look inside our glass distillation column: vapor rising through a redistributor cap and meeting liquid downflow from the packing above.

Distillation works because vapor and liquid on each tray have slightly different compositions. The vapor is enriched with the more volatile component, and step by step this difference builds separation. In our recent work on butadiene purification, this overlooked principle became the key to unlocking a simple, high-impact optimization. Sometimes, the fundamentals hide the greatest opportunities.