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fractional distillation
Sign in to saveprocess of separation of a mixture into its component parts by evaporation and recondensation at controlled temperature and pressure
~14 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Fractional distillation is the separation of a mixture into its component parts, or fractions. Chemical compounds are separated by heating them to a temperature at which one or more fractions of the mixture will vaporize. It uses distillation to fractionate. Generally the component parts have boiling points that differ by less than 25 °C (45 °F) from each other under a pressure of one atmosphere. If the difference in boiling points is greater than 25 °C, a simple distillation is typically used.
A crude oil distillation unit uses fractional distillation in the process of refining crude oil.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “fractional distillation” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.