Freeze distillation
Fractional freezing is a process used in process engineering and chemistry to separate substances with different melting points. It can be done by partial melting of a solid, for example in zone refining of silicon or metals, or by partial crystallization of a liquid, as in freeze distillation, also called normal freezing or progressive freezing. The initial sample is thus fractionated (separated into fractions).
Partial crystallization can also be achieved by adding a dilute solvent to the mixture, and cooling and concentrating the mixture by evaporating the solvent, a process called solution crystallization. Fractional freezing is generally used to produce ultra-pure solids, or to concentrate heat-sensitive liquids.
Freeze distillation is a misnomer, since it is not distillation but rather a process of enriching a solution by partially freezing it and removing frozen material that is poorer in the dissolved material than is the liquid portion left behind. Such enrichment parallels enrichment by true distillation, where the evaporated and re-condensed portion is richer than the liquid portion left behind.
The detailed situation is the subject of thermodynamics, a subdivision of physics of importance to chemistry. Without resorting to mathematics, the following can be said for a mixture of water and alcohol:
The best-known freeze-distilled beverages are applejack and ice beer. Ice wine is the result of a similar process, but in this case, the freezing happens before the fermentation, and thus it is sugar, not alcohol, that gets concentrated. For an in depth discussion of the physics and chemistry, see eutectic point.
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