Abstract: A process for distilling ethylene oxide out of a mixture including ethylene oxide in a column at an absolute pressure of from 2 to 10 bar and a temperature of 20 to 180.degree. C. by withdrawing pure ethylene oxide in the liquid or gaseous state overhead or via a sidestream in the rectifying section of the column includes effecting the distillation in a column having on its inside a plurality of successive zones of structured sheet-metal packing or dumped beds of packing elements, these zones being assigned one or more extinguishing systems on the outside of the column.

Abstract: The invention relates to a process for evaporating a liquid containing vaporizable oxidation-sensitive compounds in an evaporator in which the liquid is brought into contact with a heated solid surface for evaporation, by a process in which direct contact between the resulting vapor phase and the heated solid surface is substantially avoided. It also directed to an evaporator composed of a heatable solid surface (16), an apparatus (2, 3) for heating the solid surface and an apparatus (10) for feeding a liquid containing vaporizable compounds to the heatable solid surface, wherein the apparatus for feeding the liquid is designed and arranged in the evaporator in such a way (12, 14, 18) that direct contact between a resulting vapor phase and the heatable solid surface is substantially avoided.