polymerizer87
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Sodium ethoxide purification?
Anyone have a good reference to literature or a textbook on purification of common laboratory reagents. I've acquired some rather old sodium ethoxide.
Over time this stuff tends to form carbonates from all the co2 in the atmosphere.
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zoombafu
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Is it in an ethanol solution? or crystals?
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polymerizer87
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Crystals, it's been in a plastic bag sealed in a metal can for god knows how long. I want to attempt to purify it before I think about neutralizing it
and dumping it out
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zoombafu
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Purification of Laboratory Chemicals
Well I know that if it contacts water in the air it forms NaOH.
According to the above link purification is not possible (or very difficult not sure which) and the author recommends preparing a new sample if one is
needed.
[Edited on 20-7-2012 by zoombafu]
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smaerd
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Couldn't you dissolve in anhydrous ethanol with molecular sieves. Then add dry acetone to crash the sodium ethoxide? Then again you might as well make
more at that point.
[Edited on 20-7-2012 by smaerd]
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edgecase
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Quote: Originally posted by zoombafu  |
Well I know that if it contacts water in the air it forms NaOH.
According to the above link purification is not possible (or very difficult not sure which) and the author recommends preparing a new sample if one is
needed.
[Edited on 20-7-2012 by zoombafu] |
I believe it can be made by refluxing NaOH and anhydrous ethanol, maybe you could just add some ethanol and reflux for a couple hours, then distill
off the ethanol? Depending what you want to make with it, the NaOH may not be a problem.
Here's a photo of some sodium acetate I made (from ethyl acetate), by refluxing anhydrous 2A ethanol with NaOH. I believe there was some sodium
ethoxide (or possible methoxide) produced along side, since after exposing the residue to the atmosphere, it darkened and produced red spots higher up
in the stillhead, which from what I read is characteristic of the ethoxide in contact with air/water vapour.
 
http://coplanar.net/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=324
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polymerizer87
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the color is on par with the material I have. Ill do a run through this weekend and see what happens.
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edgecase
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Cool! I look forward to some feedback.
On thinking it through however, If the sodium ethoxide decomposes to NaOH and ethanol, the colour would be white. Therefore the product must be
something else. Will that something else react with ethanol and NaOH to produce sodium ethoxide again? I suspect not but that would be a happy
outcome.
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polymerizer87
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Ill do some monitoring with FT-IR I have a reference sample of some sodium ethoxide, and ill post the data after the purification attempt.
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Dr.Bob
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There was a previous thread (try the search engine) where Nicodem stated that you could crystallize NaOEt from acetone somehow to get "pure" NaOEt.
I am not familair with that try, but you might want to search for the thread.
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madcedar
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This is the thread you want to read:
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=2656
It's as easy as ABC believe it or not.
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