Chemistry Activity
Fractional Distillation
Purpose
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Purpose |
Background
This can be seen in the picture of a moonshine still on the right. This confiscated still is
similar to the apparatus to be used in this activity. The tank in the center of the picture is
the retort where the impure liquid is boiled. The pipe extending from the top of this retort
is the condenser. This is where the vapors from the boiling liquid cool and condense back into
a liquid. The tank in the bottom right corner of the picture is the receiver. After the
vapors condense, they flow into the receiver where they are collected.
Today, among the many uses of distillation are the preparation of alcoholic beverages, the
refining of petroleum, and the desalination of salt water. In this activity you will distill a
mixture of two liquids. That is, you will perform a fractional distillation.
Distillation apparatus
Data Analysis
Implications and Applications
Concluding Questions
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A confiscated moonshine still...: Courtesy North Carolina Department of
Crime Control & Public Safety, Alcohol Law Enforcement Division.
An early drawing of a distillation apparatus: Courtesy Chemical Heritage Foundation Image Archive, gift of Donald Othmer.
Title page from The Art of Distillation: Courtesy Chemical Heritage Foundation Image Archive, gift of Donald Othmer.
Distillation tower at an oil refinery: Courtesy U.S. Department of Energy.
This activity has been adapted from Orna, Mary Virginia, Schreck, James O., and Heikkinen,
Henry, editors. SourceBook Version 2.1. New Rochelle, NY: ChemSource, 1998.
ethyl alcohol, or ethanol
A confiscated moonshine still
shows the basic components
of a distillation apparatus.
An early drawing of a distillation
apparatus.
Possibly the earliest definitive work on distillation was written by John French in 1651.
It's rather snappy title was The Art of Distillation. Or, A Treatise of the Choicest
Spagyrical Preparations Performed by Way of Distillation, Being Partly Taken Out of the Most
Select Chemical Authors of the Diverse I, Anguages and Partly Out of the Author's Manual
Experience Together with, The Description of the Chiefest Furnaces and Vessels Used by Ancient
and Modern Chemists also A Discourse on Diverse Spagyrical Experiments and Curiosities, and of
the Anatomy of Gold and Silver, with The Chiefest Preparations and Curiosities Thereof, and
Virtues of Them All. The work occupied six volumes.
Title page from The Art
of Distillation.
Safety
Distillation tower at
an oil refinery.
Image Credits
Moonshine still being raided in 1954: Courtesy Sherrif's Department, Bradley County,
Tennessee.