convective boiling than pure substances or azeotropic mixtures. Overall, zeotropic mixtures transfer heat more efficiently at the bottom of the fluid, whereas pure and azeotropic substances transfer heat better at the top. During convective flow boiling, the thickness of the liquid film is less at the top of the film than at the bottom because of gravity. In the case of pure liquids and azeotropic mixtures, this decrease in thickness causes a decrease in the resistance to heat transfer. Thus, more heat is transferred and the heat transfer coefficient is higher at the top of the film. The opposite occurs for zeotropic mixtures. The decrease in film thickness near the top causes the component in the mixture with the higher boiling point to decrease in mass fraction. Thus, the resistance to mass transfer increases near the top of the liquid. Less heat is transferred, and the heat transfer coefficient is lower than at the bottom of the liquid film. Because the bottom of the liquid transfers heat better, it requires a lower wall temperature near the bottom than at the top to boil the zeotropic mixture. Heat transfer coefficient From low cryogenic to room temperatures, the heat transfer coefficients of zeotropic mixtures are sensitive to the mixture's composition, the diameter of the boiling tube, heat and mass fluxes, and the roughness of the surface. In addition, diluting the zeotropic mixture reduces the heat transfer coefficient. Decreasing the pressure when boiling the mixture only increases the coefficient slightly. Using grooved rather than smooth boiling tubes increases the heat transfer coefficient. Distillation The ideal case of distillation uses zeotropic mixtures. Zeotropic fluid and gaseous mixtures can be separated by distillation due to the difference in boiling points between the component mixtures. This process involves the use of vertically-arranged distillation columns (see Figure 2). Distillation columns When separating zeotropic mixtures with three or greater liquid components, each distillation column removes only the lowest-boiling point component and the highest boiling point component. In other words, each column separates two components purely. If three substances are separated with a single column, the substance with the intermediate boiling point will not be purely separated, and a second column would be needed. To separate mixtures consisting of multiple substances, a sequence of distillation columns must be used. This multi-step distillation process is also called rectification. In each distillation column, pure components form at the top (rectifying section)