Retort

Such industrial-scale retorts are used in shale-oil extraction, in the production of charcoal and in the recovery of mercury in gold-mining processes or from hazardous waste.

Before the advent of modern condensers, retorts were used by many prominent chemists, such as Antoine Lavoisier and Jöns Berzelius.

[citation needed] An early method for producing phosphorus starts by roasting bones, and uses clay retorts encased in a very hot brick furnace to distill out the highly toxic product.

[2] The term retort comes by way of Middle French, but ultimately from Latin retortus, twisted back, for the shape of the neck.

In laboratory use, due to advances in technology, especially the invention of the Liebig condenser, retorts were largely considered to have been rendered obsolete as early as the beginning of the 20th century.