What is Distillation?
Distillation refers to the process of separating mixtures in which differences on the volatility of a boiling liquid mixture are the basis. This process is not a chemical reaction instead it is a physical separation or unit operation. Profitably, distillation has numerous applications. It is used in separating crude oil into more divisions for specific uses such as heating, power generation, and transport.
To remove impurities like salt of seawater, water undergoes the process of distillation. Just like water, air also go through distillation process in order to separate its components that include argon, nitrogen, and oxygen. These components are often used in industrial purposes. During the ancient times, the process of distilling fermented solutions is done to produce distilled beverages with excess alcohol content. The distillation is carried out in a distillery especially if distilling of alcohol is done.
During the 12th century in medieval Europe, distillation was introduced through the Arabic’s Latin translations of chemical treatises. In 1500 the first ever book dedicated to distillation subject was published by a German alchemist named Hieronymus Braunschweig. This book was called as “The Book of the Art of Distillation”. Apparently, in 1512, the book was republished in a much expanded version. In 1651, another book about distillation subject was published by John French and is entitled as “The Art of Distillation”. Though this book has been claimed, many people say that much of its content was derived from the manuscript of Braunschweig.
The early forms of distillations come in batch processes wherein one condensation and one vaporization are used. With further distillation, the purity of condensate was improved. By simply repeating the distillation, greater volumes are processed. In order to obtain genuine compound, chemists had carried out as many as 500-600 distillations.
The distillation applications are roughly divided into four classifications, the food processing, the herbal distillation, the industrial distillation, and laboratory scale. These classifications differ in many distinctive ways from one another. The industrial distillation and laboratory scale classifications involve beverage processing in which distillation process is used as an essential purification method. The method deals more on the transfer of all volatiles to the distillate from the source materials. The major difference of these two classifications is that the industrial distillation occurs continuously while the laboratory scale performs in batches.
Since distillation involves the process of compound purification based on its volatility, there exist different types of distillation. These types include the short path, vacuum, steam, fractional, and simple distillation. The working fundamental of distillation process is to heat a mixture at a certain temperature. After heating, hot vapors are collected and condense in order to separate the component substance. In a simpler concept of distillation process, a compound that is high in volatility is separated from a compound with non-volatility or less volatility.
The simple type of distillation is performed on a mixture with difference of at least 70 degree Celsius on the component boiling point. For fractional distillation, the volatility of the components should differ nearly by 25 degree Celsius. Meanwhile, steam distillation is used in purifying mixture with components that are heat or temperature sensitive such as the organic compounds. The vacuum distillation is a special process that separates the pressure and compounds lower than the typical atmospheric pressure. Lastly, the short path distillation is often performing on thermal sensitive compounds.