Science
What is Distillation?
Distillation is a way to separate liquids by boiling and then re-condensing them. Because different substances boil at different temperatures, heating a mixture lets you collect each part as it vaporizes — used to purify water, make spirits, and refine oil.
See it, don’t just read it.
Watch a 2-minute lesson with voice + animation that explains distillation.
Key things to understand
- 1A mixture is heated until one component boils into vapor.
- 2The vapor is cooled and condensed back into a separate liquid.
- 3Substances separate because they have different boiling points.
- 4It purifies water and produces alcoholic spirits.
- 5Oil refineries use it to split crude oil into fuels.
Frequently asked questions
- How does distillation separate liquids?
- The mixture is heated so the lower-boiling component vaporizes first; that vapor is cooled back to liquid and collected separately.
- What is distillation used for?
- Purifying water, making spirits like whiskey, refining crude oil into gasoline and diesel, and producing many industrial chemicals.
- What is fractional distillation?
- A version that separates several components at once by their different boiling points — how a refinery splits crude oil into many fuels.