The Combostill – A Decade On and Still An Innovation in Chemistry Lessons
For those of you who have not encountered the Combostill, it is a piece of apparatus designed for doing organic chemistry experiments quickly in the classroom on a small scale.
It can be used for distillation and refluxing and the number of experiments you can do with it depend on the imagination of the teacher. You can, if you wish replace the thermometer with a syringe to use as a dropping funnel.
What are the advantages of the Combostill over normal scale Quickfit apparatus?
•   It can be used at Key Stages 3-5 and can be adapted to work with other apparatus like our own Microcalorimeter.
•   It’s small size means that each student in your class can safely use it on their own
•   It can be put together safely without any worries about joints that are not sealed
•   It uses about 1/20th the amount of chemicals used by Quickfit apparatus
•   You get enough of the products to do chemical tests and in many cases,calculations on yield
•   The experiments can be done in about one-half the time
Because of the smaller scale you do not have to worry about all those health and safety issues that stop you doing things on a larger scale. When you are using 2.5 cm3 and not 50 cm3 of flammable liquids there is a lot less to worry about. Chemistry is chemistry whatever the size of the apparatus, and the principles of distillation and refluxing are transferable from one scale to another It does not need water or a supply of gas to function and therefore you do not have to worry about taps, sinks, water flow and leaks.
