Blunter the kid
Well-Known Member
You should separate the alcohol layer and save it, it's likely that it's holding a lot of the aromatics.an update:
Chilling my condenser water by placing the garden hose in a big bucket and then filling the bucket with water, dry ice and regular ice, works beautifully... It really matters what time of day and weather we have here in the desert it seems...
The Dow Corning High Vacuum Grease does indeed perform much better than just 100% non-toxic silicone grease...
These 2 improvements are now allowing me to reclaim pretty much 100% of my ethanol. I'm going to be attempting my second reflux distillation as soon as I've reclaimed my ethanol from this regular vacuum distill.
I will most likely add the salt water solution to the toluene step and I'll just let it separate in a big jar or something then I'll just pipette out the toluene.
Also how clean does that layer of toluene look after the extraction? I bet it's nice and golden, and even if it isn't then a saline wash should do the trick.
But I'm curious as to why you used toluene and not hexane or pentane, is there some advantage you could help me understand again?