SIMPLE AND FRACTIONAL DISTILLATION

Gianne Maureen L. Abcede, Ma. Erika Lourdes D. Azurin, Elizabeth Ann O. Bautista,
Bea Pamela M. Borromeo and Mark Louis A. Chica
Group 1 2C Pharmacy Organic Chemistry Laboratory

ABSTRACT
Distillation is the extraction of volatile component of a mixture through a two way process, evaporation and
condensation. Volatility is the tendency of a substance to vaporize easily. In distillation, when a substance is heated,
i.e., ethanol and water, the more volatile substance will vaporize first. The result is the separation of the distillate and
the residue.
The experiment is divided into two parts, simple and fractional distillation. Simple distillation is an easy set-up where a
solution or a mixture of substances with different volatility is separated through exposure heat. Evaporation takes
place, changing liquid to gas. Vapors form and pass through a condenser wherein it changes its form from gas to
liquid. The collected vapor is the distillate of the experiment. Residue is the remains in the set-up that didnt pass
through the process of evaporation and condensation. On the other hand, fractional distillation under go series of
evaporation and condensation process to purify more complex mixtures. It is more efficient in terms of
decontamination or separation of substances.

INTRODUCTION
Distillation is the process of purifying compounds
by means of separating more volatile substance
from non-volatile or less volatile substance. There
are two principles that lie in the experiment,
Dalton's Law and Raoult's Law. Dalton's Law
implies that the pressure of a gas mixture is
equal to the sum of the partial pressures of the
gases composing it. While Raoult's Law connotes
that the vapor pressure of a solution equals the
product of the vapor pressure of the pure solvent
and the mole fraction of solvent.

collected for each test tube. Then, data is

graphed and analyzed.

In this experiment, the group should be able to

attain the following objective: (1) to be able to
differentiate simple from fractional distillation,
(2) to be able to separate the components of an
alcoholic beverage, and (3) calculate the
percentage of ethanol in the alcoholic beverage.

Table 1.

EXPERIMENTAL
The group was required to exhibit simple
distillation in examining the presence of ethanol
in the alcoholic beverage and so we used a micro
distillation set-up. The set-up should be tightly
secured. Clamps and iron stand held for the body
of set-up. We used a rubber tubing for the water
inlet and connected it to the water supply. When
the inlet was secured, it was turned on. Presence
of boiling chips must be checked to prevent
bumping. When the set-up is fixed, through the
use of alcohol lamp, the flask should be heated
moderately. The data was first recorded when the
distillate first dropped. 0.5 mL distillate is

Sequence of Simple Distillation Apparatus from

the source of sample: Pear-shaped flask, Still
head with thermometer, Leibig condenser,
received adapter and the distillate receiver (test
tube for this experiment).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Test Tube

Volume (ml)

Temperature
(C)

Flame
Test

F1

0.50ml

82.0 C

F2

1.00ml

84.0 C

F3

1.5ml

86.0 C

F4

2.00ml

86.0 C

F5

2.5ml

87.0 C

F6

3.00ml

87.0 C

F7

3.5ml

89.0 C

F8

4.00ml

90.0 C

F9

4.5ml

92.0 C

F10

5.00ml

94.0 C

F11

5.5ml

97.0 C

F12

6.00ml

99.0 C

F13

6.5ml

100.0 C

F14

7.00ml

100.0 C

Calculations:

The table shows an increase in temperature for

0.50 ml of collected vapor. When the temperature
become constant and there is a constant slope in
the graph, it confirms the presence of ethanol in
the sample wherein it is most concentrated. In
the flame test, there is presence of alcohol when
it produces a flame. The alcohol beverage in the
experiment shows an orange to blue flame. When
there is no flame produced, ethanol is not
present in the sample test tube.
The graph shows the relationship of temperature
to the volume of vapor collected from the
sample.

REFERENCES
Books:
Winkle, M. v. (1967). Chapter 9 Mass
Transfer Processes. In M. v. Cinkle,
Distillation. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Articles:
(Heath, 2003)
Heath, K. (2003). Laboratory Chemistry
Organic Techniques.Birmingham,
United Kindom: Cirriculum Press.
Websites:
Answers.com. (n.d.) Retrieve July 11,
2009, from
http://www.answers.com/topic/distillat
ion
Scribd.com. (n.d.) Retrieve July 11, 2009,
from
www.scribd.com/doc/6602463/DKE20
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