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Tag:

distillation

History

Christian von Weigel: the inventor of the counter- current “Liebig condenser”.

by Roberto Poeti 11 March 2021
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The chemical laboratories of the first half of the 19th century

Of the complex of Justus von Liebig’s chemical laboratories in Giessen, transformed since 1920 into one of the most interesting science museums in the world, one is struck by the size, the wealth of instruments and equipment. The museum preserves the Institute of Chemistry almost intact, where Liebig worked as a teacher and scientist from 1825 to 1852. It is a unique structure, which has survived to the present day. In those rooms and laboratories, generations of chemists from all over Europe and even the United States were trained under the guidance of a great teacher. Liebig later also taught in Munich. An important space has been dedicated to him at the Deutsches Museum in this city. His laboratory is reconstructed in real size. But among the many “objects” that fill the space of his workshops, in both museums there are two that the visitor perceives as the most important. One is the apparatus for the analysis of organic substances, the other is the apparatus for distillation. In both there is a detail that makes them original. In the first it is the Kalium-apparat for the absorption of carbon dioxide, in the other it is the counter-current condenser in distillation.

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But if the authorship of the Kali-apparat is Liebig, the condenser, which bears his name, is not his invention. His merit   is to have made it  a routine tool, precious in laboratory analysis.

But who is responsible for the invention of the counter-current condenser?

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11 March 2021 0 commento
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History

The history of distillation up to the 18th century

by Roberto Poeti 2 January 2021
Liber de arte Distillandi de Compositis
A long story

The history of distillation is closely linked to that of alcohol. The mention of distilling devices can be found in the authors of ancient Greece. But these tools were very primitive because they consisted of boilers heated over a high heat on which a layer of sponges was placed which collected the vapors, condensed them and then was pressed to extract the juice. This process, although primitive, has made it possible to obtain a low-alcohol drink. The Romans do not speak, in their works, of distillation devices. They had a fairly accurate knowledge of fermentation phenomena, they made wine, mead and the Germans had taught them to make a kind of beer. What we know for sure is that alcohol and distillation are the fruit of the practice of the Arabs; in fact, the names, alcohol and alembic, originate from this language.

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2 January 2021 0 commento
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PROF. ROBERTO POETI

Hi, my name is Roberto Poeti , a former teacher . I decided to create this blog to continue the dialogue on Chemical Scienze, its history and its teaching and to share the experiences of my trips I’ve done now and in the distant past.
“Even Chemistry is a beautiful journey into the knowledge of the matter“

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