Where there is a solvent or chemical mixture and there is a need to remove or isolate part of that mixture a rotary evaporator will probably be used. They actually can accommodate large volumes of a mixture when necessary. They are able to process the mixture very quickly and are therefore are found in most organic labs.
Principle of rotary evaporator
A rotary evaporator has a water bath that can be heated. This makes sure that the mixture doesn’t freeze during the extraction process. Using a vacuum the material is removed and a condenser traps it where it can be collected for disposal or reuse. Usually the vacuum is a water aspirator vacuum so to them use this process for water mixtures further traps are required. The large container that is heated makes it a very quick process. The solvent that has been extracted is collected in a container and later removed. This process doesn’t overheat the material because the temperatures that are involved in the process are very low.
Application of rotary evaporator
The most important application industries of a rotary evaporator is medical, chemical engineering, biological product, for the purpose of scientific research and production. Evaporation, crystallization, drying, separation and solvent recovery process is necessary for any of the industry to handle reaction solvents.
Laboratory is another significant rotary evaporator application place, in most cases for teaching use. During the experiment process, evaporating flask is placed on the desk, it is not easy to roll and broken.
In recent years, rotary evaporation applications spread to cooking industry on molecular cooking. Molecular cooking or molecular gastronomy is a science to apply physical and chemical principle to cooking industry. And for today, molecular cooking is the proper noun for innovative cooking style, it combined advanced technology with psychological cooking skill. Use rotovap to evaporate liquid via non-heating method, thus maintained volatile aromatic substance which is easy to lose by heating. It’s a prefect combination of modern gastronomy with lab instruments.