Water purification

Distillation

Distillation involves the procedure of separating the chemical substances based on differences in their contaminations at the boiling point of a particular liquid. Distillation usually forms a greater part of chemical process, and thus indicated as unit operation. Distillation is defined as a process in which a mixture of liquid or vapor of two or more substances is separated in its component fractions of preferred purity, by the application and the removal of heat.

The process of distillation was started to use even before 4500 BC. The process of distillation was first used by Arabs to produce perfumes. Distillation is based on the fact that the vapor of a boiling mixture will be richer in components which have lower boiling points. Consequently, when this vapor is cooled and condensed, the condensate will contain more volatile components.

Commercially, distillation has certain uses. It is employed to separate the crude oil in more fractions for specific uses such as transport, for the production of electricity and heating. Distillation is used to produce distilled beverages with more percentage of alcohol which may be the oldest form of distillation, being popular since ancient periods.

Distillation is employed commercially for the production of oil and it’s by products, alcohol, distilled water, xylene and many others liquids. There are three types of distillation namely simple distillation, fractional distillation, and destructive distillation.

In the modern organic chemical laboratory, distillation is a powerful tool, for the identification and the purification of the organic compounds. The distillation of water is an effective process and the more important is it can be made with much improvisation. We can heat water either by using current: fire or electricity. We can employ anything which holds water for a boiler, as long as you can direct the vapor in to a cooler. A cooler can be a long piece of copper pipe folded in a spiral. We need only something which just cools the vapor. In a situation of worst cases, you can distill water with an ordinary household pot and two lids. Boil water in a pot covered with first lid. After sometimes, we can note that the water in the pot evaporates and condenses in the lid. Now replace the lid with the second lid, and turn the first vertically, so that all the condensed water is gathered at a point, and then pour it in a cup. After waiting, more distilled water condenses on the second lid of the pot.

Distillation will remove from water almost everything, even heavy metal, poisons, bacteria and viruses. However, it does not remove the substances which have boiling points at a lower temperature than water. Substances such as petroleum, alcohol, other substances, which in the majority of the cases do not mix with water. The removed substances of water remain in the boiler, thus we must clean it up at least once.