Long story short, I'm doing essential oil extraction of wood. There's a piece of wood stuck in my round bottom flask - I guess it swelled up during
the steam distillation process. It almost fits through the neck of the flask but gets stuck, and I can't break it up or pull it out. I'm currently
letting it soak in hot (50 C) saturated NaOH with stirring. It doesn't seem to be doing much. Any other ideas?SWIM - 1-7-2019 at 14:46
I'd try 10% bleach for a few days of soaking.
You could put the dry flask in an oven at 200 to 250C and try to carbonize it..
Concentrated H2SO4 might break it down.monolithic - 1-7-2019 at 14:54
Good ideas, thanks for the quick response. I think I'll try H2SO4 first, since I have some drain cleaner sitting around.WGTR - 1-7-2019 at 15:05
I’d suggest putting it in an oven and letting it dry out. If it swells in water, then without water it shrinks again...?DavidJR - 1-7-2019 at 15:06
Burn it?fusso - 1-7-2019 at 17:07
i dont think heating that hot is better than H2SO4. a bunch of organics like tar will stick to the flask. good luck in removing that unless you have
piranha soln.DraconicAcid - 1-7-2019 at 17:11
Copper(II) hydroxide dissolve in concentrated ammonia will dissolve cellulose- it might help break up the wood.clearly_not_atara - 1-7-2019 at 17:49
Copper(II) hydroxide dissolve in concentrated ammonia will dissolve cellulose- it might help break up the wood.
Ding ding ding! This is the original rayon process. It isn't used anymore because avoiding copper contamination of effluent is hard --
Cu(NH3)22+ is very stable and its salts are highly soluble.
There are also ionic liquids that can be used for dissolving cellulose. The anion is usually acetate, since it is a good H-bond acceptor. Cations are
often imidazolium, though morpholinium, amidinium and choline have been used. Choline acetate in particular is accessible to the amateur, as is the
DES choline chloride-urea. See:
Thank you everyone for the interesting ideas. Some hot H2SO4 drain cleaner did the trick. Mabus - 7-7-2019 at 07:44
Glad to hear. Sulfuric acid works best I see.Magpie - 7-7-2019 at 16:09
Wood is disintegrated in pulp mills using aqueous NaOH/Na2S (Kraft process) at about 180°C for 3 hrs under pressure. This dissolves the lignin that
binds the cellulose fibers together.
I would try heating it in aqueous NaOH (~25%) as hot as possible for a few hours.
