Coffey, Aeneas

Ethyl alcohol, already known to alchemists, was used by industry towards the middle of the last century when continuous distillation in columns was devised by Ireland s Aeneas Coffey in 1830 and when it became exempt from excise duties on alcohol if methanol was added to it. 

Patent Stills,—By far the greater quantity of ordinary alcohol is distilled in a patent still, the invention of Aeneas Coffey. In this process the alcohol is expelled by blowing steam through the wash which is spread in layers over a considerable surface. The wash enters at the top of the still and passes downwards over a series of perforated copper plates in which are small orifices, where the liquid is... 

In 1830 Aeneas Coffey of Dublin designed a still which operated continuously and gave good alcohol separation (31). He fed the preheated mixture of water and alcohol (from fermentation) into a vertical series of shallow chambers placed one on top of the other, separated from each other by perforated plates, heated by live steam, and using refiux see... 

Aeneas Coffey (Great Britain) is awarded a patent for a continuous-operated distillation column (without trays) for whisky. 

Aeneas Coffey, who was issued a British patent in 1830 for his continuous-operated distillation coiumn (for whisky). 

The alchemists of the Middle East were familiar as early as the first century AD with the technique of distillation which was necessary to separate the ethanol from the water. Indeed, developments of their simple pot stills were used to prepare concentrated spirits with a high ethanol content (say 500 g 1 well before the Industrial Revolution. Yet the true industrial production of ethanol directly from a crude fermentaion broth with its high solids content became possible only after Aeneas Coffey, working in Dublin, developed his multistage continuous still in 1830 (Figure 6.1). The last traces of water in the azeotrope which the still produced were removed with a drying agent. 

Rectification is probably the most frequently used separation method we have, although it is relatively new. While simple distillation was known in the first century, and perhaps earlier, it was not until about 1830 that Aeneas Coffey... 

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