Courses
Courses for Kids
Free study material
Offline Centres
More
Store Icon
Store

How would you separate benzene (b.p.$\,{80^o}C$) from toluene (methyl-benzene(b.p. ${111^o}C$) with which it is miscible)?

seo-qna
SearchIcon
Answer
VerifiedVerified
441.3k+ views
Hint: As there is very less difference in boiling point of toluene and benzene, we can separate it by some distillation method.Distillation is a widely used method for separating mixtures based on differences in the conditions required to change the phase of components of the mixture. To separate a mixture of liquids, the liquid can be heated to force components, which have different boiling points, into the gas phase

Complete step by step answer:
We can separate benzene and toluene by a method which is also known as Fractional Distillation because there is very little difference in their boiling point.
Fractional distillation is the separation of a mixture into its component parts, or fractions, such as in separating chemical compounds by their boiling point by heating them to a temperature at which one or more fractions of the compound will vaporize. This is used to separate these two compounds i.e. Benzene and Toluene.
Under fractional distillation, 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.
Steps under Fractional Distillation:
Step 1 - Heated crude oil enters a tall fractionating column , which is cooler towards the top and hot at the bottom
Step 2 - Through the column vapours from the oil rise.
Step 3 - Vapours condense when they become cool enough.
Step 4 - At different heights, liquids are led out of the column.
 Hence, we can separate benzene and toluene by Fractional Distillation.

Note:
Advantages of Fractional Distillation:
Fractional distillation is much better than simple distillation in separation due to higher theoretical plates. It is an important process in many fields such as chemistry, industry and food science.
Fractional distillation is used in processes such as crude oil refining, desalination and chemical purification