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The simpler distillation

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neuro_rocket

neuro_rocket

Rising Star
SWIM is extracting from Phalaris Arundinacea, that means that SWIM is going to be doing a lot of defats. Which means that SWIM is going to be using a lot of naptha.

Now SWIM is in a situation where his supplies of naptha are very limited, so he thought that he would try to boil off the naptha then condense and recollect it (a basic distillation setup). SWIM doesn't have access to lab equipment, but he does have access to a lot of free time, so he got tinkering.

SWIM's final distiller setup is composed of two glass bottles (SWIM uses beer bottles) each with a cork that fits very tightly. SWIM drilled a hole in each cork and inserted a tube (he picked up some chemical resistant nylon tubing at home-depot, but anything that isn't affected by naptha should work) so that the bottles were connected.

In order to distill SWIM fills one bottle with his oily naptha and puts it into a hot water bath (a pot with boiling chips that is set onto the stove) then puts the other bottle into an ice water bath. Then he waits, replacing ice when the ice water bath gets to hot.

Notes
-SWIM doesn't have a digital camera, he hopes the explanation suffices (unless another nexian wants to build the distiller and post pics)
-Make sure the corks fit tightly, if you smell naptha then there is a leak.
-However, you also want to make sure that the corks are loose enough to pop out and prevent an explosion if the pressure builds too fast.
-SWIM has an electric stove, he wouldn't suggested using an open flame to run the hot water bath.
-SWIM is wondering if using this to concentrate the DMT/naptha solution before freeze-precipitation would work, or would the DMT vaporize and move to the receiving bottle?

-Neurorocket
 
SWIM believes that the corks will pop out before the glass breaks (although he has no real way of knowing).
But I'll edit it to make sure people don't put the cork in super tight.
 
SWIM should note that in practice this technique isn't very good with naptha (not sure why) but works great with isopropyl alcohol.
 
is naptha not evaporating and condensing? or is it maybe condensing in the tubing itself before it gets to the cold bottle?
my friend is a cheapo and thinks of reusing distilled naptha instead of spending lots of money on fatty leaves.
 
I think the problem with this is that most of naptha has a higher BP than water. So a boiling water bath won't get it hot enough. This isn't a problem with alcohol because it has a lower BP.
 
^^Yes thats true but not in all cases. It depends on the naptha. Different kinds of naptha are different in different regions and different grades are available. You want one that contains lighter ingredients. Meaning smaller chain hydrocarbons, like hexane with less aromatic impurities.

Also to add again distilling anything with heat in a completely sealed environment creates a pressure build up. Pressure build ups can lead to explosions.
 
burnt said:
Also to add again distilling anything with heat in a completely sealed environment creates a pressure build up. Pressure build ups can lead to explosions.
Click to expand...
This shall not be a problem though, since the weakest links are the corks. Unless you glued them in place they shall burst WAY before the glass bottles do. The risk here is rather the heating. If there's any leak and you're using an open flame, you're living a risky life.

Naphtha is hard to distill, since the boiling point might be high. You might not really need to reach this point though, since it will evaporate pretty quickly at 100 degrees. I would recommend using heptane or hexane as defatter, since they are easily distillable, if it's a problem.

An idea might be to try a steam distillation (check it up!). It might be possible to modify your idea here to fit such a setup in, and it should evaporate way faster.
 
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