Distillation

Distillation is a separative process which involves drying, evaporating or boiling a liquid, redirecting the vapor produced, and condensing the vapor back into a liquid. Because this process proceeds based on the specific boiling/condensing point of the material, it can be used to separate one material from another. It is often repeated with successive iteration having increasing control over the evaporation and condensation temperatures, resulting in successively purer distillates.

Vocabulary

Equipment

• The device the source material is evaporated from is called the boiling flask
• The device which condenses the vapors is called the condenser
• The device which collects the drops of distillate is called the receiver.
• Sometimes the boiling flask and condenser are combined into one piece of equipment. This device is called an alembic.

Materials

• The source material to be wholly or partly evaporated is sometimes referred to as the mother liquor
• The condensed material is called the distillate, or sometimes the condensate
• When the process is finished, any material not evaporated, remaining in the heating container, is called the residue

See Also

• Separative chemistry
• Drying