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Concept
Dry distillation
Summary
Dry distillation is the heating of solid materials to produce gaseous products (which may condense into liquids or solids). The method may involve pyrolysis or thermolysis, or it may not (for instance, a simple mixture of ice and glass could be separated without breaking any chemical bonds, but organic matter contains a greater diversity of molecules, some of which are likely to break).
If there are no chemical changes, just phase changes, it resembles classical distillation, although it will generally need higher temperatures. Dry distillation in which chemical changes occur is a type of destructive distillation or cracking.
The method has been used to obtain liquid fuels from coal and wood. It can also be used to break down mineral salts such as sulfates (SO42-) through thermolysis, in this case producing sulfur dioxide (SO2) or sulfur trioxide (SO3) gas which can be dissolved in water to obtain sulfuric acid. By this method sulfuric acid was first identified and artificially produced. When substances of vegetable origin, e.g. coal, oil shale, peat or wood, are heated in the absence of air (dry distillation), they decompose into gas, liquid products and coke/charcoal. The yield and chemical nature of the decomposition products depend on the nature of the raw material and the conditions under which the dry distillation is done. Decomposition within a temperature range of 450 to about 600°C is called carbonization or low-temperature degassing. At temperatures above 900°C, the process is called coking or high-temperature degassing. If coal is gasified to make coal gas or carbonized to make coke then coal tar is among the by-products.
When wood is heated above 270°C it begins to carbonize. If air is absent, the final product (since there is no oxygen present to react with the wood) is charcoal. If air (which contains oxygen) is present, the wood will catch fire and burn when it reaches a temperature of about 400–500°C and the fuel product is wood ash. If wood is heated away from air, first the moisture is driven off.
Official source
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