An alembic (from ar, الإنبيق, al-inbīq, originating from grc, ἄμβιξ, ambix, 'cup, beaker') is an alchemical still consisting of two vessels connected by a tube, used for distillation of liquids.

Description

The complete distilling apparatus consists of three parts: the "cucurbit" (Arabic: ; Greek: , ), the still pot containing the liquid to be distilled, which is heated by a flame; the "head" or "cap" (, ; Greek , ) which fits over the mouth of the cucurbit to receive the vapors, with an attached downward-sloping "tube" (, ); and the "receiver" (, ; , or , ) container. In the case of another distilling vessel, the retort, the "cap" and the "cucurbit" have been combined to form a single vessel. The anbik is also called the raʾs (head) of the cucurbit. The liquid in the cucurbit is heated or boiled; the vapour rises into the anbik, where it cools by contact with the walls and condenses, running down the spout into the receiver. A modern descendant of the alembic is the

pot still A pot still is a type of distillation apparatus or still used to distill liquors such as whisky or brandy. In modern (post-1850s) practice, they are not used to produce rectified spirit, because they do not separate congeners from ethanol as eff ...

, used to produce distilled beverages.

History

Dioscorides's ambix (described in his ) is a helmet-shaped lid for gathering condensed mercury. For Athenaeus (≈225 C.E.) it is a bottle or flask. For later chemists it denoted various parts of crude distillation devices. Alembic drawings appear in works of Cleopatra the Alchemist,

Synesius Synesius (; el, Συνέσιος; c. 373 – c. 414), was a Greek bishop of Ptolemais in ancient Libya, a part of the Western Pentapolis of Cyrenaica after 410. He was born of wealthy parents at Balagrae (now Bayda, Libya) near Cyrene between ...

, and Zosimos of Panopolis. There were alembics with two (dibikos) and three (tribikos) receivers. According to Zosimos of Panopolis, the alembic was invented by Mary the Jewess. The anbik is described by Ibn al-Awwam in his (''Book of Agriculture''), where he explains how

rose-water Rose water ( fa, گلاب) is a flavoured water made by steeping rose petals in water. It is the Herbal distillate, hydrosol portion of the distillation, distillate of rose petals, a by-product of the production of rose oil for use in perfume. R ...

is distilled. Amongst others, it is mentioned in the (''Key of Sciences'') of Khwarizmi and the (''Book of Secrets'') of al-Razi. Some illustrations occur in the Latin translations of works which are attributed to Geber. Image:Zosimosapparat.jpg, Alembic of Zosimos of Panopolis Image:Alembic (PSF).jpg, Modern alembic Image:AlambicCharentaisChalvignacPrulhoDistillation.jpg, Large "charentais" type alembic for distilling spirits Image:Alambique 056.jpg, Copper retort Image:Alembic.jpg, Glass alembic Image:Chemical Faculty of TUG, staircase.jpg, Alembic metalwork in the staircase at the Chemical Faculty of Gdańsk University of Technology, 1904

Metaphorical reference

Metaphorically, an alembic is something that refines as if by distillation.

Unicode

The

Unicode character set Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, whic ...

specifies three symbols for alembics. The pictograms ⚗, ⚗️, and the ancient alchemical symbol 🝪. The latter is part of the newer UCS-4 addition that includes other ideographs like emojis and thus may not appear correctly on older browsers.

References

External links