Question

what are the similarities and differences between distillation, azeotropic distillation, extractive distillation and liquid-liquid extraction.

Answer 1

Explanation:

- Simple Distillation: its a separation method that can be used when the two or more liquids in the mix have at least 50 degrees of difference between their boiling points.

-Azeotropic distillation: is a technique to break an azeotrope (constant boiling point mixtures), that can't be separated by simple distillation, by adding another component to generate a new azeotrope (between one initial component and the new one added) with lower boiling point.

-Extractive distillation: is a process to separate mixtures with close boiling points by adding a miscible, high boiling or none volatile solvent to increase the relative volatility of the liquids in the mix, this increases the separation factor. It differences from the azeotropic method because it doesn't form an azeotrope.

-Liquid-liquid extraction: is a method to separate compounds based on their relative solubilities in two different immiscible liquids.

After describing all the methods we can conclude that all of them are methods to separate substances based on their physical properties, this is their similarity. The difference between this method is the property it uses to separate (solubility in the case of extraction and boiling point in the case of destinations), the cases in which they bare used (when the liquids difference in boiling points is bigger [simple] or close [attractive and azeotropic]) and the formation of azeotropes (present in azeotropic and absent in extractive).

I hope you find this information useful and interesting! Good luck!