It was not the desire to drink alcohol that gave impetus to the birth of the alcohol industry. The first who practically solved the question of how to separate water and alcohol were not consumers and not even potion producers, but … doctors. Alcohol is an incomparably better solvent than water, therefore, on its basis, ancient oriental healers successfully prepared their drugs. The distillation method was brought to Europe, as one of the trophies, by the knights from their crusades. In the Old World, the method took root, however, in France it received another appointment - the manufacture of cosmetics. And only then the mash distillation products began to slowly win a place under the sun as drinks, which is associated with many legends and legends.
The method every grandma knows about
The substance from which alcohol is usually obtained is mash, and moonshine is the oldest way to separate the mixture. True, the process does not give alcohol and water in its pure form, but it is cheap, reliable andworked out for centuries.
In the process of fermentation, yeast produces alcohol from sugar-containing substances, and at a certain concentration of it, they themselves die in it (alcohol, it turns out, is a poison even for the yeast that produces it). Then pure physics comes into play: water, as you know, at normal atmospheric pressure (about 760 mm Hg) turns into steam at a temperature of 100 ° C, but ethyl alcohol - ethanol, the same one that creates a "festive " mood, boils at a temperature of about 78 ° C.
So the way to separate water and alcohol is obvious. When heated, ethanol vapors are the first to evaporate and are removed from the boiling zone. Then the vapors enter the cooler and condense, turn back into a liquid. The water remains in the tank.
How did you learn to get pure alcohol?
However, in reality, not everything is so simple and easy. At 80 °C, the alcohol evaporates rapidly and leaves the container. Although water does not reach the boiling point at this temperature, some of it still evaporates and enters the cooler along with ethanol vapor. If you do the distillation 3 or more times, the maximum strength that can be achieved is 80 … 85%. And how to separate water and alcohol completely or almost completely? For this, at the end of the 19th century, a distillation column was invented.
Its device differs from the usual "grandmother's" moonshine still by the presence of a vertical shaft, where alcohol-containing vapors enter beforehow to be in the refrigerator. In the shaft, the vapors pass through a series of obstacles in the form of plates, free-form bulk parts, etc. The task of these obstacles is to cool the steam a little and make it condense. It is water that settles in the form of droplets and by gravity again enters the container - as a liquid with a higher boiling point. Alcohol vapors continue their way to the top of the column and only there they are taken for cooling and condensation.
Other ways
However, there are other ways to separate water and alcohol. For example, what happens if the original liquid is not heated, but rather cooled? This is exactly what, according to some assumptions, the ancient Vikings did with their ale to make it stronger. In a jug of ale, which was taken out at night in severe frost, an ice formed in the morning. It was thrown away, and the drink remaining in the jug turned out to be stronger and more addictive. The secret of the method is simple - water crystallizes at a temperature of 0 ° C, in order to freeze ethyl alcohol, it would have to be cooled to minus 115 ° C.
But putting temperature aside altogether? In this case, how to separate alcohol and water? Chemistry can also help in solving the problem. There are substances that chemically bind water, neutral to alcohol. Others, on the contrary, react with alcohol, ignoring H2O. These are methods such as leaching or s alting out. However, in practice, such methods are most often resorted to only for scientific purposes.
