Emblemoz - 16-7-2015 at 14:52
Hello everybody, I'm new to this forum as a user, all tough I have been reading on the treads on this site for a year or two.. Thank you very much for
all your knowledge, its amazing how much knowledge about chemistry many people have on this forum.. 
To introduce myself: I am a 27 year old guy from the north-west coast of Norway. I have recently the last couple of years grown a large interest in
science and especially the field of chemistry.
The question I have to you in my first post is:
I've got some toluene from were I work , but the label on the metal-can says it is about 60% toluene, but it says nothing about what the rest of the
40% of the content is..
Does anybody have any idea what the remaining stuff can be?
The product is some kind of a thinner for paints and etc, but toluene is not available for non-professional use in Norway, so I thought I had to grab
the chance while I had it available..
I can get the name of the product if that would make things easier.. Please excuse me if my english is bad, its been 10 years since I've had my last
english-lesson in school..
aga - 16-7-2015 at 14:58
If you want to purify it, add your Toluene to water in a separatory funnel.
Shake it hard, and vent often to prevent any gas build-up.
The Toluene will not mix with the water, and the 'other' stuff probably will.
It will separate into 2 layers.
Drain off the bottom layer.
Somebody here on SM told me that a year or two ago (sadly i cannot remember who) and it works very well.
If you have Paint Thinners, the 'other stuff' will be xylene, ethyl acetate, acetone etc.
[Edited on 16-7-2015 by aga]
Bot0nist - 16-7-2015 at 15:16
Do you have the manufacturer, brand name, or can you find an MSDS (most employers are required to have them on hand and available) for the product? I
found a couple links on google claiming 60/40 toluene/benzene mixes, but I doubt that do to sweeping restrictions on benzene for health concerns. Try
shaking with water, as aga suggests. If this doesn't help, the additive is likely also not miscible with water as well. At which point, a fractional
distillation would be of great use.
[Edited on 16-7-2015 by Bot0nist]
DraconicAcid - 16-7-2015 at 16:09
If the additive is ethyl acetate, you may be able to extract it with aqueous sodium hydroxide solution (as long as you give it time to hydrolyze).
ChemPlayer_ - 16-7-2015 at 16:56
I'd accurately measure out a small amount of the thinners, then shake with 2 x the volume of water as suggested, then separate the layers and measure
how many ml of the organic layer are remaining. This will give you an indication of how much water soluble stuff is in there.
If you see a large decrease in volume (i.e. 40%) then the remainder is likely mostly toluene.
In any event you'll probably want to distill off the toluene to purify it reasonably well, but go slow, wrap the still head in aluminium foil, and see
what comes off at what vapour temperature - ethyl acetate and benzene have lower boiling points (~80C) and xylene isomers / ethylbenzene are higher
(~140C). You might also find some dichloromethane in there too (~40C).
These boiling points are close enough that it's likely you won't get 100% separation of pure toluene (~110C) without a fractionating column but you
can probably get >90% toluene if you are careful about it.
zed - 17-7-2015 at 14:27
Could be mixed with damned near anything. Try asking. Contact the manufacturers, and ask them. Say, you want to make sure it doesn't contain
acetonitrile. Or, you could claim you might find ethanol objectionable. Or, Methanol.
No point in spending a long time experimenting, when you might be able to just ask..... and get an answer.
aga - 17-7-2015 at 14:30
Extreme wisdom zed.
Respek.
ave369 - 18-7-2015 at 05:00
We in Russia have a similar paint thinner, called "Solvent-646", which contains 50% toluene. The rest are amyl acetate, acetone, ethanol and
2-ethoxyethanol. Most of these compounds are water-soluble, and toluene isn't. So first we extract everything that's water soluble, with water. Then
we remove the amyl acetate with an alkaline solution.