fractionating tower

He swung left, avoiding the fractionating towers of the refinery.

Such industrial fractionating towers are also used in air separation, producing liquid oxygen, liquid nitrogen, and high purity argon.

Outside, the tops of fractionating towers and steel pylons, indistinct and ghostly in Titan's feeble light, were drifting slowly into view from below.

It was typical of such facilities the world over, endless rows of squat, cylindrical tanks painted a drab olive color, together with the tangle of piping, fractionating towers, compressor buildings, flare towers, and furnaces that marked a petroleum refinery.

In the 1930's, artists were mightily impressed by heavy industry, and prints like Isaac Friedlander's "Fractionating Tower" (1931) and Harry Sternberg's "Forest of Flame" (1939) were read as celebrations of limitless and beneficent power.