Using Distillation to Separate Soda Pop
You will be able to separate THREE ingredients in Soda Pop: Carbon Dioxide, Water, and Flavorings. The
other ingredients will stay together.
Safety Warning:
• You must wear goggles.
• The glass elbow in the stopper and the thermometer will easily be broken if they are twisted or force.
• The glassware and rubber tubing will become very hot. Hot steam might also burn you.
Supplies:
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Cherry Coca-cola
Lime water
2 test tubes
Test tube holder
Ice bath
100 mL graduated cylinder
10 mL graduated cylinder
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Hot plate
500 mL Erlenmeyer flask
Rubber stopper with 2 holes
Thermometer
Rubber tubing
Boiling chips
Procedure:
1. Place 50 mL of the Cherry Coke into the Erlenmeyer flask with 3 boiling chips
2. Place rubber stopper in Erlenmeyer flask with thermometer in one hole and the rubber tubing in the other
3. Fill test tube with 5 mL of lime water and place it in the ice bath
4. Run tubing to the test tube of lime water.
5. Place the flask onto a hot plate. Turn on the hot plate to about half power and watch the thermometer. Very
soon you should see bubbles in the Lime Water from the plastic tube. (If not, your stopper has probably come
loose).
6. Record the temperature when the Lime Water begins to change and then heat it at that same temperature for
THREE more minutes.
7. After 3 minutes, stop heating while you change the apparatus. Put the used Lime water down the sink. Clean
and dry the tube. Insert the hose into a smaller test tube then put that empty tube in a beaker of ice.
8. Increase the heat on the hot plate so that the temperature rises slowly. Do a wafting test on the fumes coming
out of the tube. Record the temperature if you detect an odor.
9. Let the mixture come to a steady boil and collect the liquid that appears between 90 and 100 degrees. STOP the
experiment when only about ¼ of the soda remains.
10. When the apparatus has cooled, test the odor of the remaining soda and liquid in the test tube. Record the
appearance of each liquid.
11. Put all the chemicals down the drain, clean the flask, and return the parts.
Questions
1. How did this separation technique work?
2. How did the separation technique in this lab compare to other separation techniques that you have used?
3. Why was it important to let the temperature remain at the same point for 3 minutes?
4. What was the first component to separate out? What was left behind?
5. Why might this component have come out first?