IntroductionThis experiment was carried out to isolate an organic substance, eugenol, present in clove oil, which is immiscible with water using a new technique called steam distillation . Using the high vapor pressure and low boiling point of water in steam distillation, eugenol, with its low vapor pressure and high boiling point, is extracted from cloves and checked for purity. TheoryDistillation is the separation of two substances based on the differences in boiling points, as when the vapor pressure of a certain substance (from here on abbreviated to VP) reaches and is equal to the applied pressure (here, the pressure applied is atmospheric pressure). Steam distillation, however, specifically requires two immiscible liquids, one being water and the other an organic substance, eugenol in this experiment. In steam distillation, Dalton's law of partial pressures is applied. It indicates that P_Total=P_A^°+P_B^°, or in this case P_(Total VP)=P_water^°+P_eugenol^°. Here, since eugenol is an oil and cannot mix with water, the two are two independent systems. This equation indicates that with the combined HP of water and eugenol, a certain total HP will be achieved for the system; and once this total VP equals atmospheric pressure, the eugenol-water mixture will begin to boil. When considering the relative contributions to the total PV of water and eugenol, be aware that as the temperature of the system increases, the PV of water increases, as does that of eugenol. But because there is more water present, the PV of water rises faster and accumulates higher than the PV of eugenol. In other words, the rate at which the VP of water increases will be greater than the rate at which the VP of eugenol increases, thus contributing more to the total VP of the system...... middle of paper ......in the extraction of eugenol from cloves. Although this technique was effective in extracting pure eugenol, as evidenced by the purity analysis performed above and the fact that the eugenol would have decomposed if it had been boiled alone rather than by distillation at steam, however, was not effective. Efficiency was lacking when considering the time spent simply performing the extraction and recovering only 8.607% of the theoretical mass of eugenol and the amount of money/supplies used in the extraction to obtain only that amount eugenol. An alternative to help resolve this efficiency issue could be to crush/grind the eugenol before steam distilling it to give more surface area to the amount present, thereby reducing the supply cost and increasing the quantity of final product; or a completely new technique can be explored, such as extracting clove oil by solid-liquid extraction.