Distillation Lab

Distillation

Purpose

Distillation is a technique used for separating or purifying liquids. Distillation separates two liquids by heating the mixture and causing one of the components to vaporize and leave the mixture while the other is retained in the liquid states. Selecting a distillation technique depends on the boiling points of the compounds being separated or purified. For our experiment, we used both fractional and simple distillation. Fractional distillation is generally used to isolate liquids in which the boiling points and vapor pressures are too close together to just use simple distillation effectively.

Results

Cyclohexane:

Boiling point - 80.74 oC

Toluene:

Boiling point - 111 oC

Volume vs. Temperature

Volume Simple Fractional

0 mL 70 oC 70 oC

2 mL 70 oC 73 oC

4 mL 73 oC 75 oC

6 mL 75 oC 77 oC

8 mL 77 oC 77 oC

10 mL 79 oC 80 oC

12 mL 80 oC 82 oC

14 mL 82 oC 83 oC

16 mL 85 oC 84 oC

18 mL 85 oC 85 oC

20 mL 88 oC 86 oC

22 mL 90 oC 88 oC

24 mL 92 oC 89 oC

26 mL 94 oC 91 oC

28 mL 95 oC 92 oC

30 mL 95 oC 94 oC

Gas Chromatography

Peak Simple (Area %) Fractional (Area %)

1 63.0324 74.7171

2 36.9676 25.2829

Discussion

For our experiment, each group performed either a simple or fractional distillation; then two groups combined their data from the two types to evaluate the effectiveness of simple and fractional distillation for a cyclohexane-toluene mixture. After a correct set-up for each method of distillation, each group used 50 milliliters of