Condenser (laboratory)
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In chemistry, a condenser is laboratory apparatus used to condense vapors – that is, turn them into liquids – by cooling them down.
A distillation setup using a Liebig-type condenser (the tilted double-walled tube at the center). A liquid (not visible) in the flask at left is heated by the blue mantle to the boiling point. The vapor is then cooled as it goes through the inner tube of the condenser. There it becomes liquid again, and drips into the smaller collecting flask at right, immersed in a cooling bath. The two hoses connected to the condenser circulate water through the space between the inner and outer walls.
A glass still head, upside down. The rounded part was meant to be fitted on the top of the boiling flask. Black-and-white photo of object at the Wellcome Trust museum.
Reflux
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Reflux is a technique involving the condensation of vapors and the return of this condensate to the system from which it originated. It is used in industrial and laboratory distillations. It is also used in chemistry to supply energy to reactions over a long period of time.
Toluene is refluxed with sodium-benzophenone desiccant before it is distilled to give pure oxygen- and water-free toluene.
Industrial fractionating columns all of which use reflux