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Heating under reflux enables a mixture including volatile materials to be heated for a long time without loss of solvent. The system is designed to keep materials in the flask - it follows, therefore, that any apparatus attached to the top of the condenser is redundant.

Notes:

  • The water goes in at the bottom of the condenser
  • There must not be a stopper in the top of the condenser - the apparatus must not be sealed.
  • There must not be a thermometer in the top of the condenser, partly for the same reason as above but also because it wouldn't measure the temperature of anything that mattered. The vapour doesn't get that far.
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