- #1
bomba923
- 763
- 0
Homemade Extraction
Suppose I have an aqueous solution of acetone and ethanol.
>While a simple or fractional distillation will do the job in a lab,
Are there any "homemade" methods (i.e., using materials generally found in a home,
non-laboratory setting) that can be used to extract ethanol from such a solution?
Would boiling the solution in salt water (i.e, saturated with NaCl) allow me to extract the ethanol?
(i.e., via SN2 substitution by chloride anion on carbonyl carbon, producing sodium 2-chloro-2-propanoxide, which can be later removed (as precipitate after cooling or via 'homemade' distillation*). I do not think this will work, though I have not tried this...)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Homemade distillation:
-Pour the solution (to be distilled) into a large bowl, and place a small cup in the center.
-Loosely cover the large bowl with plastic wrap, and place a few ice cubes in the center above the wrap
-Carefully heat (or place outside on a sunny day, if you can wait). The distillate will evaporate and condense upon the plastic wrap, trickling down towards center (where the ice cubes are weighing down the wrap, hence the "loose" covering) to drip slowly into the cup.
*While this procedure is nowhere near as precise and efficient as a lab distillation apparatus,
it can be used to separate compounds with sufficiently large differences in boiling points. Sadly, this is not the case with acetone and ethanol; hence, this thread!
Suppose I have an aqueous solution of acetone and ethanol.
>While a simple or fractional distillation will do the job in a lab,
Are there any "homemade" methods (i.e., using materials generally found in a home,
non-laboratory setting) that can be used to extract ethanol from such a solution?
Would boiling the solution in salt water (i.e, saturated with NaCl) allow me to extract the ethanol?
(i.e., via SN2 substitution by chloride anion on carbonyl carbon, producing sodium 2-chloro-2-propanoxide, which can be later removed (as precipitate after cooling or via 'homemade' distillation*). I do not think this will work, though I have not tried this...)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Homemade distillation:
-Pour the solution (to be distilled) into a large bowl, and place a small cup in the center.
-Loosely cover the large bowl with plastic wrap, and place a few ice cubes in the center above the wrap
-Carefully heat (or place outside on a sunny day, if you can wait). The distillate will evaporate and condense upon the plastic wrap, trickling down towards center (where the ice cubes are weighing down the wrap, hence the "loose" covering) to drip slowly into the cup.
*While this procedure is nowhere near as precise and efficient as a lab distillation apparatus,
it can be used to separate compounds with sufficiently large differences in boiling points. Sadly, this is not the case with acetone and ethanol; hence, this thread!
Last edited: