what is distillation?

Answer 1

Distillation is technically the seperation of a pure liquid from it's constituant parts based on boiling point and associated condensation point. In reference to home useage, distillation has almost no use. Home purification, primarally of water is done either by filtration, which is mechanical seperation of particals, Ion exchange or capture, as is done by charcoal filters, a process by which ions are captured by active charcoal, or by reverse osmosis. Reverse osmosis is kind of like the opposite of filtration as far as how it works. Ionic impurities are present across semipermiable membranes. Normally, through osmosis, water, the polar compound, will equalize across the membrane. When pressure of the liquid to be purified is raised over osmotic pressure, flow of the liquid reverses across the semipermiable membrane... theryby leaving nearly pure water.

Water filters such as Brita and PUR provide partical free water, however ionic impurities such as chlorine, bromine, and saline (salts) still exist due to the nature of true filtration. If a charcoal filter is present, ionic impurities will be removed, but only those with a plus or minus charge of greater than 1.03 in regards to ionic charge, not to include chlorine, bromine, or lithium.

Pure water at home is hard to obtain, but not impossible... just remember that when water is so pure that has nondetectable contaminants of any sort, it's actually unhealthy. Don't worry too much about your water. If it meets state and federal standards, you're fine drinking it straight from the tap, and if you filter for taste, filter to taste; don't go above and beyond. A little bit of bad is good for you.

Answer 2

Distillation is a method of separating chemical substances based on differences in their volatilities in a boiling liquid mixture. Distillation usually forms part of a larger chemical process, and is thus referred to as a unit operation.

Commercially, distillation has a number of uses. It is used to separate crude oil into more fractions for specific uses such as transport, power generation and heating. Water is distilled to remove impurities, such as salt from sea water. Air is distilled to separate its components - notably oxygen, nitrogen and argon - for industrial use. Distillation of fermented solutions has been used since ancient times to produce distilled beverages with a higher alcohol content.

Answer 3

when you boil a liquid and convert it to steam, you remove almost all minerials, then the steam is cooled to condense it back to a liquid, then its distiled,
[dis -still -ed] other words its been run thru a still,

Answer 4

I'm pretty shure its when you evaporate and recapture a liquid