Separating mixtures: the head of a still

This lesson asks you to explain processes used to separate mixtures, including solutions, into their components, and to identify some applications. The museum offers one record, on the head of the distilling apparatus and its use for rose-water. How separation works, and the other separation processes, your class must bring. ¹

For any separating process, name the mixture you start with, the parts you want, and what each part of the apparatus does.

The record on the anbik describes the complete distilling apparatus as three parts: the cucurbit (qar'a), the cap or head (anbik), and the receiver (qabila) ². Illustrations of Arabic apparatus survive in al-Dimashqi's cosmography, where the cucurbit is placed in front of the cap rather than under it, and the cap then resembles a cupping-glass ². Modern retorts combine the cap and the cucurbit into one ². Often the name refers only to the faucet-pipe that fits onto the cap, and special kinds include the blind anbik, without a faucet, and the anbik with a beak ². Writers often describe the anbik as one of the apparatus used for distilling rose-water ².

The record says the complete apparatus had three parts, and that modern retorts combine the cap and the cucurbit into one ². Which design would you expect to be easier to take apart and clean, and which easier to keep sealed, and why?

• The anbik: the parts of the still and the kinds of anbik, as the record describes them.
• Abu Bakr al-Razi: a physician, philosopher and alchemist; the anbik record names an al-Razi without saying which, so compare the two records before you decide.
• Al-Razi's substance classification: a handbook whose opening announces materials, then instruments, then operations.

Read about the anbik. Draw the three parts of the apparatus in order and label what you think each does.