{"id":532091,"date":"2026-07-04T02:30:06","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T02:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/532091\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T02:30:06","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T02:30:06","slug":"microdistillery-for-microchemistry-hackaday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/532091\/","title":{"rendered":"Microdistillery For Microchemistry | Hackaday"},"content":{"rendered":"

Much like radio operators being encouraged to use the least possible amount of power to make a contact, chemists have a similar rule encouraging using the least amount of materials in experiments. Not only is this rooted in economics, but in safety as well; if something goes wrong it\u2019s generally good if there\u2019s not excess amounts of reactants. With modern techniques, though, it\u2019s possible to bring experimental chemistry down to incredibly small scales, and [Marb\u2019s lab] found that they needed a custom built still for these new, diminutive experiments<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The first step is to build the heating component of the still. This is provided with a few custom aluminum parts for the base and a pair of heaters originally meant for 3D printers, with the assembled unit wrapped in insulation. The heater accomodates a 25 mL round-bottom flask. Temperature control of the heating mantle is provided by a controller mounted to a DIN rail which receives power from a 24V power supply, and an additional temperature probe is added to measure the temperature of the distillate. A test run with water shows the small still quickly and efficiently evaporating the water up to a condenser.<\/p>\n

Although building a still doesn\u2019t have to be technically difficult, building something this small that\u2019s effective and safe is a bit more challenging than a backyard moonshining operation. Scaling chemical reactions down can often be a challenge but is possible with the right mindset and equipment. We\u2019ve seen miniaturization of many things that we might not have expected including hydrogen production<\/a>, aluminum smelting<\/a>, and even the construction of a microscope<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Much like radio operators being encouraged to use the least possible amount of power to make a contact,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[61,60,80],"class_list":["post-532091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}