Distillation is the process of separating two or more miscible liquids by taking advantage of the boiling point differences between the liquids. For methanol and water, heat is added to the mixture of methanol and water and eventually the most volatile component (methanol) begins to vaporize. As the methanol vaporizes it takes with it molecules of water.

The methanol-water vapor mixture is then condensed and evaporated again, giving a higher mole fraction of methanol in the vapor phase and a higher mole fraction of water in the liquid phase. This process of condensation and evaporation continues in stages up the column until the methanol rich vapor component is condensed and collected as tops product (99.5% recovery / 99.5% pure) and the IPA/Water rich liquid is collected as bottoms product.

The distillation column has two inputs into the system, the amount of amperage in the Reboiler and the heat flux percent or (reflux ratio).The output would be the temperature of the distillate and the temperature of the Reboiler.