Processes and Equipment
Al-Rāzī mentions the following chemical processes:
- distillation,
- calcination,
- solution,
- evaporation,
- crystallization,
- sublimation,
- filtration,
- amalgamation,
- and ceration (a process for making solids pasty or fusible.)
Some of these operations (calcination, solution, filtration, crystallization, sublimation and distillation) are also known to have been practiced by pre-Islamic Alexandrian alchemists.
In his Secretum secretorum, Al-Rāzī mentions the following equipment:
- Tools for melting substances (li-tadhwīb): hearth (kūr), bellows (minfākh aw ziqq), crucible (bawtaqa), the būt bar būt (in Arabic) or botus barbatus (in Latin), ladle (mighrafa aw milʿaqa), tongs (māsik aw kalbatān), scissors (miqṭaʿ), hammer (mukassir), file (mibrad).
- Tools for the preparation of drugs (li-tadbīr al-ʿaqāqīr): cucurbit and still with evacuation tube (qarʿ aw anbīq dhū-khatm), receiving matras (qābila), blind still (without evacuation tube) (al-anbīq al-aʿmā), aludel (al-uthāl), goblets (qadaḥ), flasks (qārūra, plural quwārīr), rosewater flasks (māʿ wariyya), cauldron (marjal aw tanjīr), earthenware pots varnished on the inside with their lids (qudūr wa makabbāt), water bath or sand bath (qadr), oven (al-tannūr in Arabic, athanor in Latin), small cylindirical oven for heating aludel (mustawqid), funnels, sieves, filters, etc.
Read more about this topic: Alchemy And Chemistry In Medieval Islam
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