Distillation Column Developed for Cosmic Research
Delta recently completed an exciting project with our parent company, Polaris S.r.l. We developed a distillation column for which Polaris focused on the process while Delta focused on the mechanical solutions and provided necessary construction features.
This particular vessel produces an exceptionally pure solvent. It was constructed for a pool of international research institutes preparing an experiment on the makeup of the universe to discover matter structure. Part of the project focuses on the production of LinearAlkil Benzene (LAB) with a purity of 1x10E-15. That means that there is one particle of impurity per 1,000,000,000,000,000 of LAB particles!
LAB is a solvent that is used in the experiment as a scintillator. When pure and stressed by sub atomic matter structure particles, it releases a signal based on photons.
The plant where this column is installed is located in a cave, deep underground in order to avoid disturbance from cosmic microwave background.
Originally, the distillation column had been designed to minimize dead area and maximize cleanability (which is typical for the API market.) The construction followed particular procedures to allow for the lowest possible pollution of the internal volume of the vessels. Delta designed very special trays and distributors, and provided very high quality finishing (polishing + electropolishing) on the interior vessels’ surfaces. While this is typical for the API market, it is unusual for such complex geometry.
