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Topic: boiling points in simple distillation  (Read 7724 times)

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Offline ames00

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boiling points in simple distillation
« on: October 06, 2007, 05:46:44 PM »
 simple distillation experiments, can you account for the boiling point of your product in terms of the known boiling points of the pure components of your mixture? If so how would I go about doing this?

Offline RBF

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Re: boiling points in simple distillation
« Reply #1 on: October 07, 2007, 09:10:53 AM »
Raoult's Law might be a good place to start.

Offline lavoisier

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Re: boiling points in simple distillation
« Reply #2 on: October 07, 2007, 12:19:34 PM »
In the simplest, 'most' ideal case, Raoult's law defines the vapour pressure of the system as a function of the composition (x, mole fraction) of the liquid phase. For a mixture of two substances A and B:

pA = pA° * xA
pB = pB° * xB = pB° * (1-xA)

where the p°'s are the vapour pressure of the pure A and B.

Therefore, the total pressure of the system will be:

P = pA + pB = (pA° - pB°)*xA + pB°

You know that the liquid boils when P = Pext, where Pext is the pressure applied to your system (often 1 atm).

But from the equation above it's clear that P depends on pA° and pB°, and these in turn depend on the temperature. In the simplest case you can write:

ln p° = a - b/T

where a and b are experimental parameters.

If you write this for both A and B, solve for p° and substitute in the original equation, you will get a very complex expression that can not be solved symbolically for T.

So the short answer is: no, even in the simplest case you can't calculate the boiling point of a mixture from the boiling points of the components. And even if you introduce further data, like the a and b parameters shown above, you may need a numerical or graphical method to have your answer.

But you should ask a physical chemist, just to be sure.

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