Why are water-soluble oils of low volatility not typically isolated by steam distillation?

Expert Solution

steam distillation is used to separate immiscible liquids rather than solutions. A mixture of immiscible liquids will boil when their combined vapor pressures reach atmospheric pressure. This combined vapor pressure is just the sum of the vapor pressures of each liquid individually, and is independent of the quantities of each phase present.

Because water boils at 100° C, a mixture of water and an immiscible liquid (an "oil"), even one that has a high boiling point, is guaranteed to boil below 100°, so this method is especially valuable for separating high boiling liquids from mixtures containing non-volatile impurities. Of course the water-oil mixture in the receiving flask must itself be separated, but this is usually easily accomplished by means of a separatory funnel since their densities are ordinarily different.

At this final step, two layers i.e oil and water are separated by separatory funnel. If the oil is water soluble then we can not separate them by this funnel. Therefore water-soluble oils of low volatility not typically isolated by steam distillation.

queen_honey_blossom answered 1 hour ago

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