Introduction
Distillation is a technique widely used in organic chemistry for separating compounds based on differences in their boiling points. Many organic compounds are volatile; that is, they have relatively high vapor pressures and low boiling points. During distillation, such volatile compounds are heated to boiling in one container, called the pot. The vapors produced are then cooled and condensed by passing them through a water-cooled condenser, and collected in a separate container, called the receiver. This technique can be used to remove a volatile solvent from a non-volatile product; or to separate two or more volatile products that have sufficiently different boiling points.