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Distillation of Alcoholic Beverages Lab Report

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Chemistry
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Lab Report
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Experiment No. 1
Distillation of Alcoholic Beverages
Introduction
Distillation is a common method of separating the components of a mixture. It is a process
that depends on the differences of the boiling points of the components (1). Distillation can be
used to purify compounds like alcoholic beverages by separating the volatile material from the
less volatile material.
There are two main types of distillation namely, simple and fractional distillation. Both
processes of distillation are similar in some ways. The difference between the two is the presence
of a fractionating column in fractional distillation. The liquid will be converted into vapor by heating
and the vapor will be condensed back to its liquid form by cooling. This is done once in a simple
distillation. Repeated distillation takes place in a fractional distillation (2). The vapor rises and
encounters a cooler area which is the fractionating column and condenses. The liquid will be
vaporized again by the heat and the vapor will travel further up the column (3).
An alcoholic beverage is a fermented liquor which can be classified into three categories:
wines, beers and spirits (4). The beverage to be used in this experiment is a red wine. A wine
contains a number of components but its main components are ethanol and water (5).
The experiment aims to separate and calculate the percent ethanol of an alcoholic
beverage by simple distillation.
Methodology
For the experiment, red wine was used as the sample. Two iron stands with iron clamps
were assembled first. A sample of 15ml and 5 pieces of boiling chips was placed in the distilling
flask. The glassware used in distillation were assembled by placing grease in the joints first to
prevent vapor loss and then attached to the iron clamp. Two rubber tubes were attached to the
condenser, one was connected to a water supply and the other was connected to the drain. A
tripod with a wire gauze and a bunsen burner was placed below the distilling flask. A graduated
cylinder was placed to collect and measure the distillate. A thermometer was also placed to record
the temperature. Figure 1 shows the set-up of the experiment.

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