Fractionating Still: Hempel Bead Column on a Round Flask with Liebig Condenser (Gattermann, 1901)

The classic laboratory set-up for splitting a mixture of liquids by boiling point. A round flask is topped by a Hempel column, a tube packed with glass beads, with a side outlet near the top and a thermometer in a cork above it. The higher-boiling vapour condenses on the beads and runs back, so the vapour reaching the outlet is richer in the lower-boiling part; a Liebig condenser turns it to liquid in the receiver. One pass through it separates better than repeated distillations from a plain flask. Result: a fractionating still for laboratory distillations at atmospheric pressure. Source: L. Gattermann, The Practical Methods of Organic Chemistry (2nd American ed., 1901), pp. 16-24. Unknown: column and bead sizes. Picture: the book's Figs. 14-15.