User:Zchill/enes100/Distillation

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Give instructor top 3 project choice list
After choosing unpopular projects I volunteered to be the third man on the perfume project.

Write problem statement
Distill liquids to generate various fragrances.

Assign Task1
Task one was to develop a method for distilling perfume out of wine.



Compare actual work done to Task2
Distillation was not a go due to scheduling issues. Instead I thought I would go another route and create my own perfume.

Week1 Narrative
I got called in to work so I was unable to make it to the distillation meeting with Ben so I found a recipe for a do it yourself perfume and decided to try my hand at it. I gathered Vodka, water, and in lieu of essential oils since I couldn't find a store that sold any on Sunday night, extracts from a grocery store. The perfume has to settle for about 12 to 24 hours so I will have a definitive result on Monday.

Week1 Peer Review
I commented on Ben's Wiki page.

Assign Task2
This week I will distill scents from a wine or other fluid.

Compare actual work done to Task2
I helped with the distillation this week, but mostly just took notes and helped with the clean up.

Week2 Narrative
Alex studied the setup pretty well so he did the setup while I made a presentation to the class. He and Ben got a lot of the fluids that were left in the lab into a flask and began the distillation process. Mostly just to boil it and see what the end result would be. The problem that we encountered was that the fluids need to be measured for density to see if there is a difference. Not having done that for this experiment, the results could not be verified so we are going to have to conduct this experiment again. I helped with the clean up and the disposal of the fluids.

Week2 Peer Review
Will check back on the user pages of my team pages to make sure I don't miss anything, but nothing seems to be there at 19:38PM EST.

Assign Task3
We are planning on distilling wine and redo the distillation process for our first experiment.



Compare actual work done to Task2
For week 3 we repeated the experiment but we used wine to distill scents instead of going through the distillation process in week 2 using distilled materials already in the lab.

Week3 Narrative
Week 3 we accomplished two distillation experiments. On Monday we got to try out the distillation apparatus using wine but due to not knowing the complete distillation process, we failed to separate out each individual scent. I helped out with the set up and recording the data and performing calculations on weight and density. The experiment on Monday was a good learning step, but it didn't really result in different scents. On Wednesday we repeated the experiment but we made sure to separate out the vials based on the temperature that the vapor stopped on. On Wednesday I was in charge of switching out the vials to make sure we got good scents based on each temperatures. The switching process was pretty quick.
 * Video of Wednesday's set-up

Week3 Peer Review
Commented on Alex's discussion page.

Assign Task4
Task four is to refine our distillation techniques and to see how precise we can realistically get it.

Compare actual work done to Task4
We were able to refine the technique, and get our most pure sample of perfume yet.

Week4 Narrative
In our last week I talked with the professor to figure out how to set up the distillation apparatus to prevent the leaking problem on Monday and then on Wednesday I told the group members what I learned and then attached the cooling tube with marbles vertically to the florence flask. The rest of the set-up remained the same, but using this set up we were able to get the most pure sample of perfume that we have gotten this far in the project. The perfume had a very pleasant and sweet smell to it.


 * Set-up of the distillation process.jpg
 * Set-up with marbles.jpg

Week4 Peer Review
I went to Alex's page and commented on his project participation.

Complete Project Page
Follow the "project done" format.