Abstract: The composition profiles in an I.D.30mm Oldershaw distillation column with 6 plates at total reflux weremeasured for two ternary systems,ethanol/chloroform/n-hexane and cyclohexane/n-heptane/toluene.Somecomponent effieiencies exhibit the bizarre behaviour,exceeding the normal range(0,1),at the plates near theextreme points of the concentration profiles of the components.The possible relationship between the extremeof the profiles and the bizarre values of component efficiencies has been analysed,and the feasibility and availa-bility of some approaches for the estimation of the component efficiencies are discussed.