How Distillation Works - A Poem

When a liquid is heated
its molecules react,
In fact they start to move around
and violently interact
Crashing into molecules
Which are not yet in motion
until they gain such insane speeds
they break free of their boiling potion

And so they make their great escape
in the form of vapor
Until they meet with something cold
and their adventure starts to taper
Losing kinetic energy
they start to coalesce
and become little liquid drops
upon the newfound cold surface

The process itself is not unlike
A kettle boiling fast
The steam escapes the angry jug
and collects in droplets on the glass
It also happens naturally
when the suns hot rays
makes water to evaporate
and thus creates clouds full of rain

In chemical technology
the procedure is done
with distilling apparatus
or a big distilling column
Its purpose is to separate
liquids that can steam
from ones that can’t evaporate
or turn to gas so easily

The portion which evaporates
When heat is applied
condenses as the distillate
then comes out of the other side
And the fluid left behind
the useless liquid goo
has the honour of being named
The distillation residue…

By Kerin Gedge
Copyright 2012

(Inspired by How Things Work: The Universal Encyclopedia of Machines Volume 1 1974 Paladin edition)

Come and check out my Poetical Dictionary @ The Vocabuverse!

Comments

  1. Not too mention can be a good way to brew your own alcohol ;)

    ReplyDelete

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