Purification of Organic Compounds

Studying an organic compound's true structure, and measuring its real physical, chemical and biological properties, only makes sense once the compound itself is genuinely PURE -- any lingering impurity risks contaminating every measurement made on it. Exactly which purification method is the right one to use depends both on the physical state and nature of the compound being purified and on the nature of whatever impurity needs removing, which is why organic chemistry keeps a whole toolkit of purification techniques rather than just one: crystallisation, sublimation, distillation, fractional distillation, steam distillation, azeotropic distillation, differential extraction, and chromatography. Broadly, some of these are the natural choice for a SOLID sample (sublimation, crystallisation, fractional crystallisation, chromatography) and oth …