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5.2 MB, 81 seconds File: MOVIES/MISC/DDWOOD.MOV

Voiceover
Destructive distillation is a process in which wood is heated to form charcoal and methanol. Some wood shavings are placed into a test tube and heated with a Bunsen burner. A small nozzle has been placed on the tube so that any gases coming out of the heated mixture will pass through the nozzle. As the wood is heated, it becomes darker, beginning to char. The wood is decomposing, and one of the decomposition products is methanol or methyl alcohol. Other products also vaporize from the wood and collect on the wall of the test tube, forming a brown-colored deposit. Destructive distillation was used in the past for generating methyl alcohol, which is used today in windshield washer solvent and many other applications.

A beaker is placed over the end of the nozzle on the tube so that the vapors coming out of the tube will condense on this beaker. Brown liquid is forming from the vapors that condense. A match can be used to ignite the methyl alcohol vapor coming out of the nozzle on the tube. By destructive distillation of wood it is possible to produce the combustible vapor, methyl or wood alcohol. The charcoal left behind is much higher in carbon content than the carbohydrate of the original wood.