Its easy to improvize a distillation setup. All you need is a glass bottle (preferably a Champagne bottle since they can withstand high pressures), a rubber bung (preferably one with a hole for the PVC tubing so you don't have to drill it yourself), some PVC (or other material, teflon is the most chemically inert material available) tubing, a bucket of ice and a second bottle (for the receiving flask) and a heat source.

Just put the PVC tubing through the rubber bung, then put the bung inside the champagne bottle. Put the other end of the tubing in the second bottle, and place the second bottle inside the ice bucket. Now when you heat the contents of the champagne bottle, the liquid evaporates and since it has nowhere else to go, it'll travel through the tube and into the second bottle. Since the second bottle is in the ice bucket, the vapour will condense inside it.

Heres a diagram:

NOTE: Don't use a rubber bung for the second bottle. Make sure the apparatus is NOT sealed, otherwise it'll explode.

Obviously, you wanna make sure what your distilling isn't going to react with the rubber bung or tubing. i.e. hot acid or xylene will dissolve the rubber. PVC doesn't have very good chemical resistance properties at all. You can get teflon tubing which will resist boiling toluene or hydrochloric acid.


For a heat source there are plenty of things you can use. A simple setup is to use a camping style hotplate with an ice/oil bath. Or to control the temperature, you could use a variable temperature crock pot. Or heres a crafty way to make a variable temperature oil or water bath. Take apart an old kettle to get the heating element. In between the heating element and the power cord, install a potentiometer. Now you can control the heat with the potentiometer. Main problem with that one though is risk of electrocuting oneself.


EDIT: A ghetto reflux apparatus is much simpler. All you need is a pot (with lid) and some ice. Flip the lid of the pot upside down and place the ice in it. Thats it. Ceramic is more inert than metal, so using a ceramic bowl instead of a metal pot can be used for situations where metal can't be used.

Also, I can tell you how to make a ghetto gas bubbler if anyones interesting. Being able to bubble gases (like HCl, NH3, Cl2 etc.) is extremely useful in chemistry.