Sciencemadness Discussion Board

distillation of 50 % ethanol

reidy2015 - 8-5-2015 at 04:49

Doing a distillation of 50% ethanol to achieve a more pure ethanol like 95% . The ethanol has 50% water and 50% ethanol mixed in it. What would be a suitable temp on a distillation to get the ethanol out of the water. Or is their another way I could achieve this.

blogfast25 - 8-5-2015 at 05:23

The boiling point of a water/ethanol mixture is defined by its composition. Whether you'll reach 95 % ethanol in one single distillation will depend much on your distillation rig.

Molecular Manipulations - 8-5-2015 at 08:01

Add a mole of anhydrous magnesium sulfate for every six moles of water and distill. 95-99% can be achieved with this.

Sulaiman - 8-5-2015 at 09:48

I think that dehydrating with anhydrous calcium sulphate after dehydrating with magnesium sulphate may give even higher ('drier') purity.
There is an excellent textbook PRACTICAL ORGANIC CHEMISTRY by ARTHUR I. VOGEL in the forum library.
On page 42 there is information on some (apparently) common drying agents.
I'm having a second go through this book,
lots of it I will probably never need but I found almost all of it worth re-reading.

There is lots of info. regarding Ethanol distillation in this forum, in Vogel and here http://homedistiller.org
Even though I am only a noob, I think that the answer will not help you much,
there are many things to consider and dangers, at least a few hours research .....



vmelkon - 8-5-2015 at 11:24

Quote: Originally posted by Molecular Manipulations  
Add a mole of anhydrous magnesium sulfate for every six moles of water and distill. 95-99% can be achieved with this.


You add drying salt to a 50% mixture of ethanol and water?

Molecular Manipulations - 8-5-2015 at 11:28

I wouldn't, but yeah you could. If I had 50% I'd probably distill it once and then add a drying salt and distill again, that would be less wasteful, but it would take more time.

aga - 8-5-2015 at 11:54

i cannot believe nobody said 'Thumper'

http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=61566

Distilling with a Vigreux column for better phase separation would achieve the same thing.

Edit:

Forgot how long the thumper thread was.
Thumper Results start at page 23.
The Juicy bits are on page 25

http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=61566&...


[Edited on 8-5-2015 by aga]