distillation

distillation, process involving the conversion of a liquid into vapour that is subsequently condensed back to liquid form. It is exemplified at its simplest when steam from a kettle becomes deposited as drops of distilled water on a cold surface. Distillation is used to separate liquids from nonvolatile solids, as in the separation of alcoholic liquors from fermented materials, or in the separation of two or more liquids having different boiling points, as in the separation of gasoline, kerosene, and lubricating oil from crude oil. Other industrial applications include the processing of such chemical products as formaldehyde and phenol and the desalination of seawater. The distillation process appears to have been utilized by the earliest experimentalists. Aristotle (384–322 bce) mentioned that pure water is made by the evaporation of seawater. Pliny the Elder (23–79 ce) described a primitive method of condensation in which the oil obtained by heating rosin is collected on wool placed in the upper part of an apparatus known as a still.

Most methods of distillation used by industry and in laboratory research are variations of simple distillation. This basic operation requires the use of a still or retort in which a liquid is heated, a condenser to cool the vapour, and a receiver to collect the distillate. In heating a mixture of substances, the most volatile or the lowest boiling distills first, and the others subsequently or not at all. This simple apparatus is entirely satisfactory for the purification of a liquid containing nonvolatile material and is reasonably adequate for separating liquids of widely divergent boiling points. For laboratory use, the apparatus is commonly made of glass and connected with corks, rubber bungs, or ground-glass joints. For industrial applications, larger equipment of metal or ceramic is employed.

A method called fractional distillation, or differential distillation, has been developed for certain applications, such as petroleum refining, because simple distillation is not efficient for separating liquids whose boiling points lie close to one another. In this operation the vapours from a distillation are repeatedly condensed and revaporized in an insulated vertical column. Especially important in this connection are the still heads, fractionating columns, and condensers that permit the return of some of the condensed vapour toward the still. The objective is to achieve the closest possible contact between rising vapour and descending liquid so as to allow only the most volatile material to proceed in the form of vapour to the receiver while returning the less volatile material as liquid toward the still. The purification of the more volatile component by contact between such countercurrent streams of vapour and liquid is referred to as rectification, or enrichment.

Multiple-effect distillation, often called multistage-flash evaporation, is another elaboration of simple distillation. This operation, used primarily by large commercial desalting plants, does not require heating to convert a liquid into vapour. The liquid is simply passed from a container under high atmospheric pressure to one under lower pressure. The reduced pressure causes the liquid to vaporize rapidly; the resulting vapour is then condensed into distillate.

A variation of the reduced-pressure process uses a vacuum pump to produce a very high vacuum. This method, called vacuum distillation, is sometimes employed when dealing with substances that normally boil at inconveniently high temperatures or that decompose when boiling under atmospheric pressure. Steam distillation is an alternative method of achieving distillation at temperatures lower than the normal boiling point. It is applicable when the material to be distilled is immiscible (incapable of mixing) and chemically nonreactive with water. Examples of such materials include fatty acids and soybean oils. The usual procedure is to pass steam into the liquid in the still to supply heat and cause evaporation of the liquid.