Question

Can we separate the compounds of azeotropic mixture by fractional distillation?

Answer 1

We can say that an azeotrope is a mixture of liquid that contains boiling point which is constant and the vapor contains the same composition similar to liquid. We have to know that a liquid which has the same composition in liquid phase as well as gaseous phase, it could not be isolated by the technique of fractional distillation.

Complete answer:
In the technique of fractional distillation of any mixture which is liquid, the liquid with various boiling points are heated at temperatures at a wide range. The one that has boiling point is lower when compared to others would boil earlier and would increase in gaseous form and get isolated from the mixture. Then the same technique would be working by second liquid then third technique and so on. Whereas any mixture which is liquid boils at the same temperature and mixture composition is same for vapor phase and liquid phase could not be isolated using the process of fractional distillation. The other name of azeotropic mixture is constant boiling mixture because mixture of liquid has same composition in liquid state and vapor state. Some of the examples of azeotropic mixtures are water and ethanol, chlorobenzene and bromobenzene.
So, azeotropic mixture could not be separated by fractional distillation.

Note:
We must know that any liquid mixture that boils at fixed temperature could not be isolated by any heating process as the boiling points would be the same. The principle for distillation is the variation in boiling points of different (individual) substances found in the mixture that is liquid.