The goal of this experiment is to carry out a simple distillation of a liquid binary mixture of two organic substances, n-hexane and n-heptane. During the course of the distillation, at preselected temperature intervals, you will collect pairs of samples from the process. Each pair will consist of one sample of approximately 0.5 mL from the boiling flask, and one sample of approximately 0.5 mL from the end of the condenser. At the same time you will record the temperature of the vapor and the accumulated volume received at the condenser as a function of the time.
After the distillation has finished, you will determine the composition of the liquid and condensed vapor samples by the technique of gas chromatography.
You will present your data in two graphical formats: (a) a plot of temperature vs. time superimposed on a plot of accumulated volume vs. time, and (b) a theoretical temperature - composition diagram for n-hexane / n-heptane computed with your spreadsheet model upon which you have placed your experimental data as "tie-lines".
To prepare for this lab, we suggest that you read the lab manual very carefully before coming to class. Also, read Oxtoby, Chapter 6, section 5 and p. 368 with attention to figure 11-4 on that page.
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