Rookie Mistakes - Distillation

Mistake	Check the mistakes you have made	Number of rookies who have done this
Used boiling chips in a vacuum distillation.		7
Mix the fractions after a distillation and put in the waste the product		3
Distilled to dryness and shrapnelled the whole distillation rig.		2
Degassed freshly distilled solvent with no outlet; septum flew off with satisfying 'pop.'		2
Connected the Pipelines for the pump in the reverse direction during distillation, causes mercury thermometer to shoot out		1
During a vacuum distillation of aniline, attached vacuum line directly to three-necked round bottom, thus bypassing the condenser. Suprised to see aniline condensing in the manifold.		1
Hooked vacuum line from distillation setup to water outlet line of aspirator and filled setup with water.		1
Released hot distilled to dryness system straight to atmosphere, small explosion.		1
made product illegally and was caught		1
Tried to distill under vacuum but forgot to open valve to vacuum. Heated reaction flask to 300 C and destroyed hot plate.		1

Other Rookie Mistakes

Equipment Reagents Setup Quenching Rxns Workup Chromatography

Distillation Spectroscopy Cleaning Record-Keeping Accidents Miscellaneous