Distillation

• Fractional distillation

  • Separates lots of liquids with different boiling points.
  • The mixture is slowly heated until the liquid with the lowest boiling point boils and then condenses.
  • Then we increase temperature slowly to collect (boil then condense) the other fractions.
• Simple distillation

  • Separates 2 liquids with different boiling points.
  • The mixture is heated until the liquid with the lower boiling point starts to boil.
  • The vapour released passes through a condenser, where the gas cools back into a liquid.
• Distillation is a special technique used to separate mixtures of liquids. It uses the different boiling points of liquids to separate them. There are 2 types of distillation:
• Why is a thermometer used in simple distillation?

  • The thermometer is used to make sure the highest boiling point is not exceeded, otherwise both liquids would boil and the process would not separate them.