Home Distillation of ethanol - Very simple

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This video was made to help explain a simple distillation. Do not attempt to duplicate, re-create, or perform the same or similar experiments at home, as personal injury or property damage may result. The producer of this video is not responsible for any such injury or damage

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It’s important to note that water and ethanol form an azeotrope lower than the bp of each constituent (water = 100 C, EtOH = 78.4 C, azeotrope = 78.2 C). This makes it impossible to attain an ethanol concentration above ~95.5% when distilling. Further purification is required if a higher concentration is desired— such as using molecular sieves, adding sodium to the distilled azeotropic ethanol/water mixture, or using the benzene pressure swing method for larger scales.

andrewtreat

Possible DIY upgrades to this process:

A fractional distillation column before the condenser: same reason why ethanol evaporates easier, water condenses easier. A fractional distillation column is basically a tube with glass shards in it that enable the vapour to experience multiple evaporation-condensation cycles each time biasing the process more to ethanol.

Salting out: you can add salt to the mixture and the ethanol separates and sits as a layer on top of the salt water. Extract that layer and then distill it to remove the salt. Obviously it will still contain some water but it will save you a couple of distillation cycles.

atrumluminarium

I recomend to put some sand inside the jar or something with rough edges to have some nucleation points. I think some broken glass can be used too.

If you dont have those nucleation points the alcohol can be at a temperature higher than the boiling point and the water from the water bath be boiling. If that happens that meas that you are waisting the energy in boiling the water from the water bath instead of using if for boiling the ethanol, and furthermore there is the risk of an explosion ocurring from the superheated ethanol sponteanously boiling.

When I was doing this kind of distillation with a bottle, the ethanol wasn't boiling, so i added some sand into the bottle and it suddently boiled. Some ethanol scaped and splayed me in the hand, but luckly nothing more happened.

lautaromorales