"That's right, this substance is called ethanol, meaning the essence of alcohol, and its strength is significantly higher than regular spirits."

"What materials are needed to produce ethanol?"

Xu Yun continued:

"Two glass bottles, several bent copper pipes, these two things are indispensable.

Additionally, a large amount of white liquor, sodium bicarbonate, and extremely refined salt are needed.

Oh, and prepare a few sheets of asbestos as well."

Old Su picked up pen and paper from the table, noting down these names with a curious and puzzled expression:

"With just these, you can produce the ethanol you mentioned?"

Xu Yun nodded:

"That's right."

"What about the principle?"

"Distillation."

Distillation.

This term, in the 21st century, is a concept most middle school students are familiar with.

The concept of distilling ethanol is quite simple:

The boiling point of water is 100 degrees, and the boiling point of ethanol is 78 degrees. By utilizing the different boiling points, you can use distillation to obtain ethanol with a higher concentration.

That is, when alcohol and water are mixed, if you heat it to 80 degrees, the ethanol will boil, but the water won't.

The boiled ethanol condenses into another cup, and you can get a high-concentration ethanol solution.

However, while the concept sounds simple, putting it into practice is quite troublesome.

The specifics involve a small amount of chemical thermodynamics knowledge.

As is well known.

The critical point of temperature at which the first batch of bubbles begins to separate in a mixture's liquid phase is called the bubble point, while the critical point of temperature when the gas phase reaches saturation and a liquid phase appears is called the dew point.

At this point, some students might start feeling overwhelmed, but that's okay, the concept isn't important.

The important thing is.

The vapor-liquid equilibrium data of a binary mixture can be viewed through a binary phase diagram.

For instance, using ethanol's mass fraction as the horizontal axis and temperature as the vertical axis, a simple phase diagram coordinate system can be drawn.

As the temperature increases, the system enters the gas phase.

As the temperature decreases, the system will enter the liquid phase.

Assuming a 40-degree alcohol solution heated to ethanol's boiling point of T=78 degrees, theoretically, the alcohol should evaporate by now, right?

But in practice, you'll find the system remains steadily in the liquid phase, with no boiling occurring.

At this point, you need to continue heating to a temperature between 78-100 degrees to reach the bubble point line, and then gas is generated.

However, to achieve vapor-liquid equilibrium here, it's apparent that the composition of the gas phase must meet the requirements, namely the corresponding point at the same temperature on the dew point line, and produce ethanol with a concentration of x2.

Moreover, you'll find that as the purity of the alcohol increases, so does the required temperature.

Which means in the end, the evaporation temperatures of water and ethanol will nearly converge.

Thus, the ethanol purity that ordinary distillation can achieve is about 95% in practice, and in a historical setting, it might only reach 80%.

While this purity is sufficient for most scenarios, as a perfectionist, Xu Yun was obviously not satisfied.

This is why he proposed the next two things:

Sodium bicarbonate and refined salt.

With the help of these two items, the ethanol concentration can be further advanced, even reaching a level of 99.9%.

The focus returns to reality.

Considering the limited amount of allicin Xu Yun made the first time, even though Old Su felt like countless ants were crawling in his heart, he could only suppress his emotions temporarily and summon Mr. Xie, instructing him to prepare all kinds of materials.

And so.

Two hours passed in the blink of an eye.

When the time reached the hour of You, around seven o'clock in the evening, Mr. Xie finally gathered all the materials.

Anyone who has done distillation experiments should know.

The distillation process generally uses spherical flasks, but given the current special circumstances, it's impossible to find fully compliant equipment.

Mr. Xie almost utilized all the connections Old Su had during his tenure to gather a few glass bottles resembling spheres.

In contrast, the process related to copper pipes posed no difficulty, as Mr. Xie directly found several copper pipes from the mansion's storeroom.

Although Old Su was an honest official, his family still had considerable wealth, considering this was the Song Dynasty, after all.

Converting according to the earlier prices, Old Su's annual income was approximately equivalent to a post-tax 8 million in modern times, which would make him a high-income group even in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou.

Subsequently, Xu Yun assembled a simple distillation apparatus from several items and poured the white liquor bought by Mr. Xie from Bianjing's first restaurant, Fan Building, into the flask.

Before the Yuan Dynasty, ancient Huaxia's liquors were mostly fermented, with strengths around ten degrees.

Some still had considerable grain residue, hence why they were called 'turbid wine.'

The few vats of liquor Mr. Xie bought back were roughly twenty degrees in concentration, made with fermented wheat starter, and could be considered the highest degree liquor currently available.

In short.....

Make do with this.

Once everything was ready.

Xu Yun placed an asbestos net and lit the furnace on a simply modified stove.

Old Su, much like a curious child, looked around the flask, tilting his head:

"Wang Lin, what's the point of placing asbestos at the bottom of the flask?"

While controlling the flame below—since in those days there was no such thing as a spirit lamp—Xu Yun explained to Old Su:

"It's mainly to prevent the distillation flask... these glass bottles from cracking due to uneven heating, by dispersing the heat."

Old Su nodded thoughtfully, then, after thinking for a while, moved to the other side of the stove.

He casually picked a pot, turned it over.

It could be clearly seen that the trace marks in the middle of the iron pot were much heavier than those on the edges.

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