Experiment 2: Separation of Ethanol from Alcoholic Beverage using Simple and Fractional Distillation

Distillation

• is a physical separation technique used to separate components of a liquid mixture based on differences in their boiling points.

• it is widely used in pharmacy and organic chemistry laboratories to purify solvents, separate active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), and isolate medicinal compounds.

• basis of separation is difference in BOILING TEMERATURE or VAPOR PRESSURE.

Applications of Distillation

• Separation of volatile oils

• Separation of drugs obtained from plant and animal sources

• Purification of organic solvent

• Purification of drugs obtained from chemical process

• Manufacture of official preparations

• Quality control methods

• Refining of petroleum products

• Recovery of solvents

Principles of Distillation

• Boiling point concept

• Volatility

• Condensation

• Vapor Pressure

How can we vaporize liquids?

1. Spontaneous Evaporation

2. Heating

3. Decreasing the pressure of the surrounding

Types of Distillation

1. Simple Distillation

2. Fractional DIstillation

3. Steam Distillation

4. Vacuum Distillation

Ideal Mixture

• Non - interacting (No IMFA)

• Non - reacting (No chemical reaction)

Non-ideal Mixture

• Interacting (with IMFA ex. polar, H-bonding, Van Der Waals, Hydrophobic Interaction)

• Reacting (with change in chemical composition)

Limitations of Distillation

• Not effective for azeotropic mixtures (constant boiling mixtures like ethanol-water at 95%)

• Energy-intensive process

• Requires precise temperature control

Standard Boiling Temperature of Pure Water

99.61 degrees celsius

Standard Boiling Temperature of Pure Ethanol

78.23 degrees celsius