ST.
STANISLAUS COLLEGE
GRADE 7 INTEGRATED SCIENCE
Teacher: Mr Bon-ni Adonis
Distillation
Distillation refers to the selective boiling and subsequent condensation of a component in a liquid
mixture. It is a separation technique that can get (almost) pure components from the mixture. The
process of distillation exploits the difference in the boiling points of the components in the liquid
mixture by forcing one of them into a gaseous state. The solid remains behind and the liquid is
recovered by condensing it. The recovered liquid is called the distillate.
It is important to note that distillation is not a chemical reaction but a physical separation process.
Types of Distillation
⮚ Simple distillation
⮚ Fractional distillation
⮚ Vacuum distillation
Simple Distillation
Simple distillation is used to separate a solute from
a solution. The dissolved solute has a higher boiling
point than the solvent. When the solution is heated, the
solvent vapour evaporates from the solution. The gas moves
away and is cooled and condensed. The remaining solution
becomes more concentrated in solute as the amount of
solvent in it decreases.
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Fractional Distillation
Fractional distillation is often used to separate
mixtures of liquids that have similar boiling points.
It involves several vaporization-condensation
steps, which take place in a fractionating column.
A fractional distillation apparatus is required for
this process. It includes a distilling flask,
condenser, receiver, fractionating column,
thermometer and heat source.
After setting up the apparatus, a mixture of two
miscible liquids A and B is taken where A has
more volatility than substance B. The solution is added to the distilling flask while the fractionating
column is connected to the tip of the flask. Heat is applied, which increases the temperature slowly.
The mixture then starts to boil, and vapours rise in the flask. The vapours are from the volatile
component. The vapours then move through the fractionating column into the condenser, where
they are cooled to form a liquid (distillate) which is collected in the receiver.
Throughout the process, vaporization and condensation take place repeatedly until it separates the
two mixtures.
Vacuum Distillation
Vacuum distillation is ideal for separating mixtures of liquids with very high boiling points. To
boil these compounds, heating to high temperatures is an inefficient method. Therefore, the
pressure of the surroundings is lowered instead. The lowering of the pressure enables the
component to boil at lower temperatures. Once the vapour pressure of the component is equal to
the surrounding pressure, it is converted into a vapour. These vapours are then condensed and
collected as the distillate. The vacuum distillation method is also used to obtain high-purity
samples of compounds that decompose at high temperatures.
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Magnetic separation
Magnetic Separation is one of the most common and
important specialized physical separation techniques. The
basic concept of Magnetic Separation is that magnetically
susceptible particles such as iron are separated from non-
magnetic particles such as soil and plastic.