Frank B. Mallory Bryn Mowr College
Bryn Mowr, Pennsylvania
I I
Apparatus for Steam Distillation -.
In using the traditional steam distillation apparatus as described in organic laboratory texts, many students spend inordinate amounts of time boring corks that could better be spent doing chemistry. Furthermore, the unwieldy character of the completed apparatus often causes students to develop the conviction that a technique so fraught with incipient disaster should be used only as a last resort for future purification problems they may face. Some of these difficulties may be overcome by supplying students with the trap shown in the figure instead of having them make a trap from a bent adapter. This new type of trap can be constructed from a 500-ml round-bottomed flask; it has sufficient capacity to al-
108
/ lourrml of Chemical Education
low material that might be sucked back inadvertently from the distillation flask to be contained and recovered easily. In addition, a simple, long-necked, sidearmdistilling flask filled less thanonethird full can be used successfullyin place of themore tediously assembled 5 s k with a two-bole stopper and glass bends that is suggested in many laboratory manTrap for steam distillation. uals.
