Photo: Visual example of Azeotropic Distillation
By: Joseph Ward
Azeotrope is a liquid mixture of two or more compounds that boils at a constant temperature and produces a vapor with the exact same chemical composition as the liquid, making it impossible to separate its components through standard fractional distillation as seen when attempting to produce pure ethanol, where “ Because ethanol and water form an azeotrope at 95.6% purity, standard boiling cannot separate them any further to create 100% pure alcohol.”
