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In a chemistry
Chemistry

Chemistry is the science concerned with the composition, structure, and properties of matter, as well as the changes it undergoes during chemical reactions....
 laboratory, a retort is a glassware device used for distillation
Distillation

Distillation is a method of separation process mixtures based on differences in their Volatility in a boiling liquid mixture. Distillation is a unit operation, or a physical separation process, and not a chemical reaction....
 or dry distillation
Dry distillation

Dry distillation is the heating of solid materials to produce liquid or gaseous products . The method may or may not involve pyrolysis/thermolysis....
 of substances. It consists of a spherical
Sphere

A sphere is a symmetrical geometrical object. In non-mathematical usage, the term is used to refer either to a round ball or to its two-dimensional surface....
 vessel with a long downward-pointing neck. The liquid
Liquid

Liquid is one of the principal states of matter. A liquid is a fluid that has the particles loose and can freely form a distinct surface at the boundaries of its bulk material....
 to be distilled is placed in the vessel and heated. The neck acts as a condenser
Condensation

Condensation is the change of the physical state of aggregation of matter from gaseous phase into liquid phase. When the transition happens from the gaseous phase into the solid phase directly, bypassing the liquid phase the change is called Deposition , which is the opposite of sublimation....
, allowing the evaporated vapors to condense and flow along the neck to a collection vessel placed underneath.

In the chemical industry, a retort is an airtight vessel in which substances are heated for a chemical reaction producing gaseous products to be collected in a collection vessel or for further processing.

rts were widely used by alchemists
Alchemy

Alchemy , a part of the Occult Tradition, is both a philosophy and a practice with an aim of achieving ultimate wisdom as well as immortality, involving the improvement of the alchemist as well as the making of several substances described as possessing unusual properties....
, and images of retorts appear in many drawings and sketches of their laboratories.






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My Retort
In a chemistry
Chemistry

Chemistry is the science concerned with the composition, structure, and properties of matter, as well as the changes it undergoes during chemical reactions....
 laboratory, a retort is a glassware device used for distillation
Distillation

Distillation is a method of separation process mixtures based on differences in their Volatility in a boiling liquid mixture. Distillation is a unit operation, or a physical separation process, and not a chemical reaction....
 or dry distillation
Dry distillation

Dry distillation is the heating of solid materials to produce liquid or gaseous products . The method may or may not involve pyrolysis/thermolysis....
 of substances. It consists of a spherical
Sphere

A sphere is a symmetrical geometrical object. In non-mathematical usage, the term is used to refer either to a round ball or to its two-dimensional surface....
 vessel with a long downward-pointing neck. The liquid
Liquid

Liquid is one of the principal states of matter. A liquid is a fluid that has the particles loose and can freely form a distinct surface at the boundaries of its bulk material....
 to be distilled is placed in the vessel and heated. The neck acts as a condenser
Condensation

Condensation is the change of the physical state of aggregation of matter from gaseous phase into liquid phase. When the transition happens from the gaseous phase into the solid phase directly, bypassing the liquid phase the change is called Deposition , which is the opposite of sublimation....
, allowing the evaporated vapors to condense and flow along the neck to a collection vessel placed underneath.

In the chemical industry, a retort is an airtight vessel in which substances are heated for a chemical reaction producing gaseous products to be collected in a collection vessel or for further processing.

History

Retorts were widely used by alchemists
Alchemy

Alchemy , a part of the Occult Tradition, is both a philosophy and a practice with an aim of achieving ultimate wisdom as well as immortality, involving the improvement of the alchemist as well as the making of several substances described as possessing unusual properties....
, and images of retorts appear in many drawings and sketches of their laboratories. Before the advent of "modern" condensers
Condenser (laboratory)

In a laboratory a condenser is a piece of laboratory glassware used to cool hot vapors or liquids. A condenser usually consists of a large glass tube containing a smaller glass tube running its entire length, within which the hot fluids pass....
, retorts were used by many prominent chemists, such as Jabir ibn Hayyan
Geber

Geber is the Latinized form of "Jabir", with the full name of Abu Musa Jabir ibn Hayyan , a prominent Muslim polymath: a Alchemy and chemistry in medieval Islam, Astronomy in medieval Islam and Islamic astrology, Inventions of the Islamic Golden Age, Geography in medieval Islam#Geology, mineralogy, and paleontology, Early Islamic philo...
 (Geber), Antoine Lavoisier
Antoine Lavoisier

Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier , the Fathers_of_scientific_fields#Chemistry, was a French people noble prominent in the histories of chemistry and biology....
 and Jöns Berzelius.

Role in analytical chemistry

In laboratory
Laboratory

A laboratory is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which science research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. The title of laboratory is also used for certain other facilities where the processes or equipment used are similar to those in scientific laboratories....
 use, due to advances in technology, especially the invention of the Liebig condenser, retorts have largely been rendered obsolete. However, some laboratory techniques
Laboratory techniques

Laboratory techniques are the sum of procedures used on natural sciences such as chemistry, biology, physics in order to conduct an experiment, all of them follow scientific method; while some of them involves the use of complex laboratory equipment from laboratory glassware to electrical devices others don't require such specific or expensiv...
 that involve simple distillation and do not require sophisticated apparatus may use a retort as a substitute for more complex distillation equipment.

See also

  • Alembic
    Alembic

    An alembic is an alchemy still consisting of two retorts connected by a tube. Technically, the alembic is only the upper part , while the lower part is the cucurbit, but the word was often used to refer to the entire distillation apparatus....