Wurtz’s ball tube

Late one afternoon while keeping an eye on students making esters in our teaching lab, a student called me over to check the set up of his distillation. I suggested he add more support for the condenser. To my secret delight he said ‘I’ll get another retort stand’, an old-school phrase that soon made me wonder how we came to distil as we do.

Distillation is one of the techniques that really connects us with our alchemical forebearers who used an alembic, two-part devices consisting of the gourd-shaped cucurbit holding the mixture, and the cap or head, with its sloping beak channeling the distillate down to the receiver.