From: cdorrough@nortonconsultants.com   
      
   "Earl Colby Pottinger"  wrote in message   
   news:9dednccKE_wJ4gbcRVn-hg@look.ca...   
   > How do you make a still that can process fluids in Zero-G?   
   >   
   > My first guess is that the evaporator uses some kind of mat to how the   
   liquid   
   > being processed, but if there are lots of solids produce that the mat will   
   > need changing often.   
   >   
   > Suggestions?   
      
   If the fluid was at least partly volatile (eg. alcohol.. ;-) you could   
   circulate it through a cross-flow heat exchanger to heat it up past boiling   
   point.   
      
   Once up to temperature, then spray it into one end of a baffled, rotating,   
   distillation column, heated at one end and cooled at the other.  The   
   condensate should(*) collect at the appropriate location along the column   
   depending on the temperature at which it condenses.  The column needs to   
   rotate to get the condensate droplets to contact the outer wall, where it   
   can be collected - but not so fast that nothing ever gets to the far end.   
   The baffles prevent the condensate remixing.   
      
   (*) - but then again, never having tried this for real, I wouldn't really   
   know. ;-)   
      
   Cameron:-)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)