Simple and Fractional Distillation Lab Modifications
You will be doing this lab in pairs. One person will do a simple distillation using 40 mL of the cyclohexane:toluene mixture, and distilling out 30 mL. The other person will do a fractional distillation, using 40 mL of the cyclohexane:toluene mixture and collecting 30 mL of distillate. You will record the temperature of the first drop of distillate, and then record the temperature every two milliliters of distillate until you have collected 30 mLs. Do not distill to dryness!
You will not collect samples for gas chromatography as stated in the procedure in the lab text.
Simple and Fractional Distillation Report Form
1. Title Page
a. A descriptive title with between 15-25 words.
b. Course and section numbers.
c. Dates the experiment was performed.
d. Your name.
2. Body of the report (start a new page)
a. Make a data table of Temperature versus Volume of Distillate for each type of distillation apparatus. Put all of the data for both distillations in one table.
b. Plot a nice graph (on graph paper) of Temperature (on the vertical axis) versus Volume of Distillate (on the horizontal axis) for each type of distillation apparatus. Put both sets of data on one graph. Do not “connect the dots”, but draw a nice curve through the data points for each apparatus. Make sure your graph is large enough to be read easily, shows the data points, is properly labeled, and distinguishes the data sets clearly. You can use Excel, but if you don’t know how to make Excel do all this, then use graph paper.
3. Questions
a. From the data you collected, which distillation apparatus was the most efficient at separating the two liquids? Explain your reasoning using your data.
b. From your graph, what was the approximate composition of the cyclohexane-toluene mixture? Explain your reasoning.
Simple Distillation Apparatus
Fractional Distillation Apparatus