Distillation is the process of vaporizing a liquid, condensing the vapor, and collecting the condensate in another container. It is very useful for separating, identification and purification a liquid mixture. When the components have different boiling points, or when one of the components will not distill. It is one of the principal methods of purifying a liquid. Four basic distillation methods are available to the chemist ;
1. Simple distillation
2. Steam distillation (experiment7)
3. Fractional distillation (experiment9)
4. Vacuum distillation (distillation at reduced pressure)
Separation and purification : it is physical process used to separate from a mixture by the difference in how easily they vaporize. As the mixture is heated, the temperature rises until it reaches the temperature of the lowest boiling substance in the mixture, while the other components of the mixture remain in their original phase in the mixture. The resultant hot vapor passes into a condenser and is converted to the liquid, which is then collected in a receiver flask. The other components of the mixture remain in their original phase until the most volatile substance has all boiled off. Only then does the temperature of the gas phase rises again until it reaches the boiling point of a second component in the mixture, and so on. Identification: the boiling point of a substance is a useful physical property for the characterization of pure compounds.