Which process purifies a liquid by heating and then cooling it?

Which process purifies a liquid by heating and then cooling it?

• A. Filtration
• B. Evaporation
• C. Distillation
• D. Chromatography

Answer: (C)

Distillation uses differences in boiling points to purify a liquid. By heating the liquid, it forms vapor, which is then cooled in a condenser to return to a liquid that is collected separately. The vapor carries the component with the lower boiling point, leaving higher-boiling impurities behind in the original mixture, giving a purer distillate. This differs from filtration, which only removes solids, or evaporation, which removes solvent but doesn’t recapture a purified liquid by cooling. Chromatography separates components based on how they interact with a stationary phase and a mobile phase, not by heating and cooling the entire liquid. So the described method is distillation.

Distillation uses differences in boiling points to purify a liquid. By heating the liquid, it forms vapor, which is then cooled in a condenser to return to a liquid that is collected separately. The vapor carries the component with the lower boiling point, leaving higher-boiling impurities behind in the original mixture, giving a purer distillate. This differs from filtration, which only removes solids, or evaporation, which removes solvent but doesn’t recapture a purified liquid by cooling. Chromatography separates components based on how they interact with a stationary phase and a mobile phase, not by heating and cooling the entire liquid. So the described method is distillation.