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acetone turns yellow when adding magnesium sulfate to it for making it anhydrous..

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lorax

Rising Star
has anyone noticed this?

also a friend had some junglespice pulls of toluene left over from the last extraction and just for fun added the same amount of FASA to it. after 2 days crystals started growing at the bottom. how long does it take for everything to precipitate?
 
I never saw acetone turn yellow before by adding anhydrous magnesium sulfate. It's probably not pure acetone. What brand is the acetone?
 
Or not pure magnesium sulfate?

Either way it sounds like the magnesium sulfate reacts with something in the acetone, maybe some chlorine contamination?
 
the acetone is clear when nothing is added. its standard hardware store acetone. the magnesium sulfate was made in the oven by heating magnesium sulfate heptahydrate for about 4 hours. it must be the magnesium sulfate which is wrong..

this was added to a jungle spice containing toluene solution.. it works tho. crystals are forming. how long should one leave it undisturbed? should one just let it sit until no more precip is observed? or is there a standard time how long it takes?
 
lorax said:
the acetone is clear when nothing is added. its standard hardware store acetone. the magnesium sulfate was made in the oven by heating magnesium sulfate heptahydrate for about 4 hours. it must be the magnesium sulfate which is wrong..

this was added to a jungle spice containing toluene solution.. it works tho. crystals are forming. how long should one leave it undisturbed? should one just let it sit until no more precip is observed? or is there a standard time how long it takes?

Magnesium heptahydrate is epsom salt, so that should be correct; unless there's another additive, which probably isn't likely. However, just because hardware store acetone appears clear, doesn't mean it has no additives, and if there are additives, they're potentially reactive with magnesium sulfate. Kleanstrip is the only brand SWIM knows of that is 100% acetone.

Add FASA dropwise until precipitate cloud formation can no longer be observed, allow to settle, repeat until no reaction can be observed.

If there are additives, it's possible that your process will either not work the way it should (possibly redissolving or reacting with the precipitate) or will yield an impure product.
 
lorax said:
the acetone is clear when nothing is added. its standard hardware store acetone. the magnesium sulfate was made in the oven by heating magnesium sulfate heptahydrate for about 4 hours. it must be the magnesium sulfate which is wrong..

this was added to a jungle spice containing toluene solution.. it works tho. crystals are forming. how long should one leave it undisturbed? should one just let it sit until no more precip is observed? or is there a standard time how long it takes?


Maybe the oven was dirty with caked on oils and such? Perhaps the oils got hot and collected on the MgSO4
 
could Acetone be added to 50/50 filtered water, and shaken to remove impurities, and then the Acetone poured off before going anhydrous with the Epsom Salts? That works with Naptha.
 
hmm.. strange. i will need to get myself some better acetone as it turns out. damn. now theres probably impurities in my bufo yopo extract as well. would the impurities be removed if redissolving it all in fresh, clean acetone? on the ingredients label of the acetone it just says 2-propanol. nothing else.

anyone know some good stores to order clean acetone from in europe?
 
KleanStrip is 95-100% acetone according to the MSDS with no other toxic substances present. They say it is 100% volatile, so it will all evaporate. The main impurity is most likely water. I would still distill it though because you have no idea who might have opened up the can at the hardware store and spit into it or something worse. Those cans are not tamper evident.
 
Thanks for the reply. Yes, this was not the intended way of doing it, just happened that way. Don't think there is any water in the Acetone, as it is precipitating just fine in Xylene, but wanted to make sure.
 
I have a question. When you distill acetone is it likely to come out with a certain amount of water like when you distill ethanol? In other words will acetone naturally suck up moisture when it is completely dry and exposed to air?
 
A friend of mine distilled some acetone, added oven baked epsom salts... it did not turn yellow at all. It got a bit cloudy at first, but after just 30 minutes most of the salt had settled and the acetone was crystal clear... not even a hint of yellow.
 
ok.. SWIMs oven wasn't exactly oil free either. its probably that. SWIM also forgot to put aluminum foil on top of the epsom salt while drying it. it could be that even more oil was able to settle on top because it wasnt covered. any ideas of removing the oil from the acetone?
 
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