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Water Repellent Filter Paper works like a separatory funnel!! REALLY???

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69ron

69ron

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I was looking at filter paper, looking for some really good quality filter paper that won’t easily clog. I came across a very interesting product:

yhst-85395291538577_2020_265704447


Whatman No. 1 PS Water Repellent Phase Separating Paper, Whatman 2200-090
Porosity: Medium
Flow Rate: Medium
Particle Retention: 11 µm

The manufacturer says this: “Silicone impregnated paper functions as a rapid phase separator in place of conventional separatory funnels. Paper retains aqueous phase and passes through hydrophobic phase.”

They are claiming it can be used in place of a separatory funnel.

The price is about $50 for 100 9 cm papers. I imagine this could do away with an emulsion in a few seconds if it actually works.

Do they actually work?
 
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They would be hard to use with a lighter than water non-polar solvent like naphtha.

However, SWIM uses DCM. It's the opposite of naphtha. Naphtha floats to the top of water. With DCM, it sinks to the bottom and the water rises to the top. DCM would work great with those filters if they actually work.

Imagine this:

1 – Boil herb in water and acid and filter through normal paper. (about 15 minutes)
2 – Vigorously blend your extract with DCM in an electric blender to defat the extract. (about 1 minute)
3 – Immediately pour your emulsion through the phase separating filter paper to collect the DCM. No waiting for the two layers to separate! What a time saver! (about 1 minute)
4 – Repeat steps 2 and 3 four more times to thoroughly defat your extract.
5 – Add base. (about 10 seconds)
6 – Vigorously blend your extract with DCM in an electric blender to extract the alkaloids. (about 1 minute)
7 – Immediately pour your emulsion through the phase separating filter paper to collect the DCM and all the alkaloids. (about 1 minute)
4 – Repeat steps 6 and 7 two more times to thoroughly extract all the alkaloids.
5 – Evaporate your DCM to get your alkaloids (about 15 minutes or so).

Man. You could save a lot of time!!! In less than 1 hour you’d be done! HOLY CRAP!!!

The fact that you could blend your two layers in an electric blender and not worry about emulsions being a problem is awesome. You could really maximum the solvent to solvent surface contact that way. You would get much more alkaloids out with fewer pulls by doing that.

SWIM owns a continuous liquid liquid extractor which replaces a separatory funnel and is completely automatic. It’s a great piece of lab glass. It can extract 99.99% of the alkaloids automatically if you let it run for about 18 hours. You can’t do that with a separatory funnel or even these 1PS papers, but the problem is that a continuous liquid liquid extractor takes a long time to completely extract all the alkaloids with it.

SWIM has already ordered those papers. He can’t wait to give them a try!
 
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amor_fati said:
So I guess you would push the filter down through the NPS layer and let it float on the aqueous and extract via pipette or maybe pour it off? Or pipette off the top layer liberally (emulsions and all) and filter through a buchner funnel?
Click to expand...

That sounds like a lot of trouble to me. If you used DCM or chloroform as the NPS, you’d simply pour your emulsion and all right on top of the filter and the DCM or chloroform would pass through. Being heavier than water those non-polar solvents would collect in your filter flask below the filter and the water would stay above the filter in your Buchner funnel. It’s perfect for those solvents.

I’m just not sure if those 1PS filters really work as they advertise. It sounds too good to be true.
 
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I read that it's treated with silicon so water can't pass through it, but even solids if they were ground fine enough would. But I imagine bark would be saturated to the point it couldn't pass no matter how finely ground it was, considering it would have problems sinking if it was that small to begin with. A heavier than water solvent would be the only thing practical with these, from what I've read on several sites, you won't be disappointed.
 
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They work. SWIM's lab is still not quite back to normal. His water lines are not operational so he hasn't done much with them yet. He tested them in his kitchen by passing d-Limonene through them. He then tried to pass water through them, the water would NOT pass through! Very cool. SWIM is excited to try them with DCM as a replacement for a separatory funnel. He only uses DCM in his lab and because his lab is not fully operational yet, he hasn't been able to test them with DCM. I'll report back as soon as they are tested with DCM in a real A/B extraction.
 
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They work with DCM, but the problem is SWIM has a diaphragm vacuum pump which doesn't work properly to filter DCM causing the papers not to stick to the Buchner funnel properly. They keep vibrating loose allowing water to get in. That is a known problem when using diaphragm based vacuum pumps with extremely volatile solvents like DCM. To use these you’ll need a vacuum source that doesn’t vibrate.
 
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