ABSTRACT
The distillation consists in vaporizing a liquid mixture by heating it and condensing the obtained vapors. In general, the constituents of a liquid mixture do possess different volatilities. As a result, the composition of the vapor is different from that of the initial liquid mixture. In turn, the condensation of the vapors leads to a liquid, the composition of which is different from that of the starting liquid. The distillation is, hence, a method of separation. The chapter contains several points; some recall physical chemistry with, for example, a definition of the volatility that governs the success of every distillation, the study of the case of the simple distillation of miscible compounds (with the case of azeotropes) and that of the rectification according to the Mc-Cabe and Thiele’s theory, some other methodologies of distillation. An important conclusion must be drawn from this study; the simple distillation does not permit obtaining components of the initial mixture in a pure state, whereas rectification allows this possibility.
