Plant Operation Test 2025 – 400 Free Practice Questions to Pass the Exam

The primary process used for the separation of chemical mixtures is distillation. Distillation is a method that takes advantage of the differences in boiling points between the components of a mixture. When a liquid solution is heated, the component with the lowest boiling point vaporizes first. This vapor can then be cooled and condensed back into a liquid, allowing it to be collected separately from the other components still present in the original mixture.

Distillation is particularly effective for separating liquid mixtures, such as those found in the petrochemical industry, where various hydrocarbons need to be isolated. The efficiency of distillation in separating substances makes it a widely used technique in chemical engineering and various industrial applications.

Other methods mentioned, like filtration, are primarily used for solid-liquid separations, while evaporation is often used to concentrate solutions rather than separate them. Condensation is a process that occurs after vaporization and is typically involved in the distillation process itself, but it does not serve as a primary method for separating chemical mixtures.