Week6 Draft2

Distillation is the process by which two liquids are separated and purified. The process requires a mechanism that will turn the liquid into the vapor phase and convert it back to the liquid phase. Since different liquids have different boiling points, the identities of the unknown liquids in a mixture may also be identified. Once the boiling point of a liquid is achieved, a plateau is reached in which the liquid phase becomes converted to the vapor phase. This property is used to distinguish the two liquids. In a distillation, the first lower-boiling point liquid is first collected when the mixture is heated because it will evaporate first. Once a plateau of the first liquid is reached, the temperature will rise sharply afterward. This is signaling that the next boiling point is about to be reached. To purify the liquids, a separate collection vial is used until the next plateau is reached. When the next plateau is reached, the vial is switched again, which will contain the second pure liquid.