Continuous distillation, a form of
distillation, is an ongoing separation in which a mixture is continuously (without interruption) fed into the process and separated fractions are removed continuously as output streams. A distillation is the
separation or partial separation of a liquid feed mixture into components or fractions by selective
boiling (or
evaporation) and
condensation. A distillation produces at least two output fractions. These fractions include at least one
volatile distillate fraction, which has boiled and been separately captured as a vapor condensed to a liquid, and practically always a bottoms (or residuum) fraction, which is the least volatile residue that has not been separately captured as a condensed vapor.