Distillation timeline

 1200 BC: Perfumery operations by the Babylonians of ancient Mesopotamia

 1st century: Evidence of distillation work done by alchemists working in
Alexandria in Roman Egypt.
 200 AD: Alexander of Aprhodisias described the process for distilled water.
 3rd century: Zosimus of Panopolis worked on distilling other liquids in early
Bizantine Egypt.
 9th century: Evidence of distillation of alcohol from the Arab chemist Al-Kindi
in Iraq.
 10th century: Distillation of beverages done by the Southern Song dynasties.
 13th century: Fractional distillation was developed by TAdeo Alderotti.
 1500: German alchemist Hieronymus Braunschweig published Liber de arte
destillandi (The Book of the Art of Distillation), the first book solely dedicated
to the subject of distillation.
 1651: John French published The Art of Distillation, the first major English
compendium on the practice, but it has been claimed that much of it derives
from Braunschweig's work. This includes diagrams with people in them
showing the industrial rather than bench scale of the operation.
 1822: Anthony Perrier developed one of the first continuous stills.
 1826: Robert Stein improved that design to make his patent still.
 1830: Aeneas Coffey got a patent for improving the design even further.
Coffey's continuous still may be regarded as the archetype of modern
petrochemical units.
 1846: The French engineer Armand Savalle developed his steam regulator.
 1877: Ernest Solvay was granted a U.S. Patent for a tray column for
ammonia distillation, and the same and subsequent years saw
developments in this theme for oils and spirits.
 1925: The McCabe–Thiele method was first published.
 1932: The Fenske equation was derived in 1932 by Merrell Fenske. Used
for calculating the minimum number of theoretical plates required for the
separation of a binary feed stream by a fractionation column that is being
operated at total reflux.
Liquid fire. (n.d.). Retrieved March 17, 2020, from
https://www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2003/12/18/liquid-fire
French, J. (n.d.). The Art of Distillation . Retrieved March 17, 2020, from
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/jfren_ar.html