Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Organic beginnings

aga - 30-5-2014 at 15:26

Living mostly Wild, i have loads of dead organic stuff around.
Trees and Weeds mostly.

75 ml water in a beaker.
add 10 ml conc sulphuric acid.
add approx 150ml organic dry weed matter.
Leave 8 hours, filter off the liquid.

Filtrate has an amber/brown tinge to it.
It is still transparent, with some white precipitates.

Hit this solution with a UV torch and it flouresces green around the meniscus line !

No idea what it is, but i like it.

aga - 31-5-2014 at 10:05

Wooo.
Stuffed all the bits into an RBF today and put the liquid back in the mix, and also the filter paper, then started distilling.

Vapour Temperature leapt up from 38 to to 58 C , held there briefly, then raced up to 90 C, where it stayed for 30 mins.

A clear water-like distillate came over @90C, approx 20ml.
I would say 'it's just water' if it were not for the fact that this same disty rig reads 56~57C when distilling acetone and 78C when distilling ethanol.

10% or 10 degrees C of Boiling Point Depression ?

Smells kinda interesting - nothing i have smelt before.

blogfast25 - 31-5-2014 at 12:05

Quote: Originally posted by aga  
A clear water-like distillate came over @90C, approx 20ml.
I would say 'it's just water' if it were not for the fact that this same disty rig reads 56~57C when distilling acetone and 78C when distilling ethanol.

10% or 10 degrees C of Boiling Point Depression ?

Smells kinda interesting - nothing i have smelt before.


You're sure about your 90 C number? If correct it would point to various low boiling organic compounds in your distillate. Not a huge surprise though...

Any phase separation in the distillate (does anything float on top)?

[Edited on 31-5-2014 by blogfast25]

aga - 1-6-2014 at 00:58

Quote:
You're sure about your 90 C number?


Fairly certain, but no record was made.

No floaters or sinkers, so no phase separation either.

I've been meaning to build a device to record the temperature profile during distillations.

Today it's raining hard, so i'll build one of those and run the experiment again.

[Edited on 1-6-2014 by aga]

blogfast25 - 1-6-2014 at 05:25

Quote: Originally posted by aga  
I've been meaning to build a device to record the temperature profile during distillations.



[Edited on 1-6-2014 by aga]


Make sure your device only starts recording once the first bit of distillate has come over, otherwise you're simply measuring the temperature of rising warm air!

[Edited on 1-6-2014 by blogfast25]

aga - 1-6-2014 at 13:01

Measuring Hot Air could be a big money spinner - there's a lot of it about !

Your comment suggested a slightly different idea - a button.
Pressed when distillate starts 'coming over' simply so that the Time that takes is measured.

A high resolution weighing scale could also be very useful, but a button would be a lot easier.

The Volatile Chemist - 2-6-2014 at 07:00

After distilling, which solution was florescent? :P I assume what was left over was.

You could try cracking the end product, if you have the capability. (I know most don't)

[Edited on 6-2-2014 by The Volatile Chemist]

aga - 2-6-2014 at 10:04

'Cracking' sounds fun.
ISTR thats to do with assuming it's a polymer and tryng to de-polymerise it.

Please elaborate, and don't say 'use a hammer on the test tube'

[Edited on 2-6-2014 by aga]

The Volatile Chemist - 2-6-2014 at 12:44

Quote: Originally posted by aga  
'Cracking' sounds fun.
ISTR thats to do with assuming it's a polymer and tryng to de-polymerise it.

Please elaborate, and don't say 'use a hammer on the test tube'

[Edited on 2-6-2014 by aga]

Using a hammer would be crushing, not cracking, besides being unscientific :P. All joking aside, I was thinking that if your result of distillation was hydrocarbons, they could be "cracked", or broken into smaller hydrocarbons. Something like:

http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/practical-chemistry/cracki...

Now that I think about it, though, you said the product at the condensed end was probably water, with some other organic compounds in lesser degrees. You also said there were no phases. That means anything organic would have to be water miscible. That rules out hydrocarbons (I'm not familiar of any that are miscible in water, unless benzene is, I wouldn't know.).
The chemicals could be steam soluble, suggesting aromatic compounds, like cinnamaldehyde. If it came over on it's own, it most likely is some water miscible solvent, if it's a smaller molecule.
In regards to the white prec. in the OP, it may just be something like calcium sulfate, do some tests on it if possible. It of course could also be some organic sulfate.
This is all just speculation, though.

aga - 2-6-2014 at 12:57

Biggest problem i see with the experiment as described in the nuffield document is knowing the catalyst to use : we have no idea what we're trying to 'crack', or does that not matter ?

Can you 'crack' all hydrocarbons in the same way, no matter what they actually are ?

I dumped all of the filtered liquid (which flouresced around the rim), the filter paper + residue + the original weeds and acid into an RBF and started distilling, so i can't test the original precipitate unless i redo from start.

To be honest, my brief time here on this site has really sparked my interest, and i now have had a glimpse at the size of the Universe of knowledge that i patently lack.

Distilling weeds is fun, but i cannot really say or show anything at this time that will end up making any sense in terms of chemistry, so it would be better for me to go back to doing IOC, for the moment at least.

Learn to Walk before Running is a timeless axiom.

The Volatile Chemist - 2-6-2014 at 13:23

Quote: Originally posted by aga  
Biggest problem i see with the experiment as described in the nuffield document is knowing the catalyst to use : we have no idea what we're trying to 'crack', or does that not matter ?

Can you 'crack' all hydrocarbons in the same way, no matter what they actually are ?

I dumped all of the filtered liquid (which fluoresced around the rim), the filter paper + residue + the original weeds and acid into an RBF and started distilling, so i can't test the original precipitate unless i redo from start.

To be honest, my brief time here on this site has really sparked my interest, and i now have had a glimpse at the size of the Universe of knowledge that i patently lack.

Distilling weeds is fun, but i cannot really say or show anything at this time that will end up making any sense in terms of chemistry, so it would be better for me to go back to doing IOC, for the moment at least.

Learn to Walk before Running is a timeless axiom.

Don't worry. I have not been here long, and I should return to IOC stuff till I get a few more things.
Quote:
Can you 'crack' all hydrocarbons in the same way, no matter what they actually are ?

I don't know much about this, but repeated cracking should produce methane.

I was thinking, though, about catalysts. The two I know of are Al2O3 and MnO2. The first may work for breaking bigger molecules, but I don't know how. (You can make it by producing Aluminum carbonate from Aluminum sulfate and baking soda, which immediately decays to Al2O3) MnO2, I do know, loves to rip Oxygen out of organic chemicals. Obviously not knowing the original structures, we couldn't predict the outcome, but it would be much simplified. The reason why the second catalyst seems the best for any reactions you do is that if the chemicals that came over through distillation were solvents, they likely have oxygen in their structures.

kmno4 - 4-6-2014 at 13:31

It all is very interesting....
What about Detritus ?

aga - 4-6-2014 at 14:12

I agree.
No actual information here, apart from adding sulphuric acid to These weeds (unspecified) and filtering results in a liquid with a (tiny) flourscent product.

Detritus candidate vote +1

Moving to Detritus should really be by vote.

Thanks a lot for moving this (my) useless thread back to the Top of the reading list.
Alternatively it would have sunk lower all of it's own accord.

aga - 4-6-2014 at 14:19

Quote: Originally posted by The Volatile Chemist  
any reactions you do is that if the chemicals that came over through distillation were solvents, they likely have oxygen in their structures.


Why so ?