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zestywesty
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Acetone from Nail Polish Remover
I managed to buy a kask of acetone from Ace Hardware yesterday. I bought it for 12.99 and it had 3.8 liters inside. I was also looking in the
Grocery store at and wondered if it would be cheaper to extract acetone from nail polish remover. Grocery store nail polish remover only contains
about 70% acetone and has several other chemicals and fragrences added, though they did not list the ratios of the other chemicals. Any ideas for a
process to extract the acetone?
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thunderfvck
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Distill it?
Acetone's boiling point is something like 56C.
I think you'd probably just be better off buying it at ACE.
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BromicAcid
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Places that specialize in beauty products sell 100% pure acetone by the gallon, about $9.65 locally. In addition you can pick up paraformaldehyde and
high concentrations of hydrogen peroxide relitively pure.
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vulture
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Distillation will require a very good fractionating column. Nail polish remover will also contain methylacetate.
One shouldn't accept or resort to the mutilation of science to appease the mentally impaired.
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thunderfvck
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How pure is the acetone from the hardware store?
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IgnorantlyIntelligent
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Totaly pure. 100% acetone if it is ACE brand. I buy ACE brand in the huge gallon containers for 10 bux. I can't imagin not being able to afford
acetone......
\"People fear from ignorance what they do not have the intelligence to understand\"
\"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation.\"
\"A fool would rather not question, a soldier is taught not to question, a slave dares not question.\"
\"To fight for nothing is to love nothing, to die for something is to have lived for something.\"
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thunderfvck
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Well I do live in Canada where Ace is not a local store. However I do go to Rona and find acetone there. I'm assuming it's the same purity
then.
Any hazards associated with acetone? I've done a bit of searching on it, found some stuff but nothing solid. I don't want to open a new
thread for this either. I use the stuff quite often, cleaning glassware, etc...I tend to get a lot on my skin also. Big problems?
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Eliteforum
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Acetone is flammable. Highly so.
All that glitters isn't gold.
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thunderfvck
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That I know. I did a foolish thing yesterday, I won't repeat the experiment. Needless to say I burned a nice part of my carpet and much of the
plastic container which was holding the flaming liquid.
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Eliteforum
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You put a burning liquid in a plastic container?!
All that glitters isn't gold.
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thunderfvck
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I did?!
Who told you that!
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Eliteforum
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My mistake, I read it too quickly (or slowly it was around 5am at the time)!
All that glitters isn't gold.
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Saerynide
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You should buy it pure if you can. Distilling from nail polish remover kinda ruins it but adding more water to it than necessary when the water
vapours condense  I trying distilling it once, and I got a solution that was nice
and colourless, but it had even worse solvating properties than before 
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thunderfvck
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haha
Sorry Eliteforum. I'm just fucking with you. You read it correctly the first time.
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Quantum
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I have a bottle of nail polish remover that says one the front that it is 100% Acetone. I guess they would not lie to me?
What if, what is isn\'t true?
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Aqua_Fortis_100%
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Well, I've searched a little and can't was able to find out more results..
The place where I live is somewhat suspicious about chemicals and people wanting them..So the only OTC acetone is the nail polish remover, full of
dyes ,water and ethanol ( the max. acetone content allowed by the law in every OTC chemical is 60%)..
So, how should I go to separate them using a improvised destiller? I'm just inconformed with this... The next 'cheap' way being hunting out in an chem
supplier (not very good idea, because of my age they can think I will use to make illicit substances - because in my country the acetone is a widely
used chemical by criminals to refine their drugs) or at the last and desesperate route, using the Piria process (calcium acetate-> acetone)...
EDIT: I remember someone saying in some thread that the resumed info I want can be found at Rhodium archives. I tried some search on google about this
but can't was able to find anything.. If anyone has the link I will apreciate a lot..
thanks
EDIT2: I need of somewhat more pure acetone as a solvent and also for do better some synthesis ( chloroform, etc)..
[Edited on 14-11-2007 by Aqua_Fortis_100%]
[Edited on 14-11-2007 by Aqua_Fortis_100%]
"The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant."
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not_important
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To do a good job is likely to take a bit better than an improvised distillation rig. Still, you could try it.
A first simple distillation should serve to get all the acetone along with some water and ethanol; acetone and water are listed as having an azeotrope
of 88.5% acetone boiling just below the BP of acetone itself. There might be a ternary azeotrope of the three, don't know. And a bit of the other
ingredients might come over as well, if they are somewhat volatile, but the dyes should stay behind. You should have something is your distillation
rig to reduce carry-over of spray, say a loose wad of metal scrubbing mesh.
After that you could treat the distillate with CaCl2, which will grab onto the water and ethanol. You want a good excess of the caCl2, and don't
leave the acetone in contact with it for too long, as it often has some CaO/Ca(OH)2 in it and will cause the acetone to self-condense.
Filter off the CaCl2, then distill the acetone again, should do it. The CaCl2 can be regenerated by heating it.
Isopropyl alcohol is a better starting point than acetate. It can be oxidised to acetone, or just dehydrogenated to it. The dehydrogenation is a 'hot
tube' type of reaction, passing the alcohol vapours over hot copper, nickel, copper chromite, or other catalysts will result in some of it converting
to the ketone and hydrogen.
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bio2
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...."acetone and water are listed as having an azeotrope of 88.5% acetone boiling just below the BP of acetone itself."....
CRC lists acetone/water as zeotropic and I have never seen a reference that
lists an acetone/water binary azeotrope.
So what gives here? Does it really exist or is there disagreement on this.
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not_important
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| Quote: | Originally posted by bio2
...."acetone and water are listed as having an azeotrope of 88.5% acetone boiling just below the BP of acetone itself."....
CRC lists acetone/water as zeotropic and I have never seen a reference that
lists an acetone/water binary azeotrope.
So what gives here? Does it really exist or is there disagreement on this. |
I was looking in the 45th edition of CRC handbook, which does list an azeotrope. It appears that one exists at a bit above atmospheric pressure, and
that simple codistillation may cause some water to come over with acetone at ordinary pressure when using shorter columns.
This may be enlightening http://www.egr.uri.edu/~lichatzt/tutorial5.html
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bio2
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OK, my info was from CRC 74th.
The linked article is very good where it illustrates the complex behavior of
acetone/water.
Azeotrope at atmospheric pressure aside, anyone who has tried to distill
dry acetone from water knows that it is nigh impossible.
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Aqua_Fortis_100%
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not_important, the info you provided is really amazing! thank you very much... I always thinked about removing the water without "pain in the ass" ,
just adding some kind of drying agent to it (like CaCl2), filtering and distilling, but never ocurred to me how to reliably separate the ethanol from
the acetone, just because I dont have a vigreux column or even an good thermometer... .. So I can use the CaCl2 to remove also the ethanol? what kind of compound it form with it?
(also, after quick treating with CaCl2 and filtering, can I use some other drying like dried MgSO4 or CuSO4 or even Na2SO4 ? (I know that the Na2SO4
can not just be used and distilled at same time because it loose most of their absorbed water from the crystal, because of the heat applied .. But and
the MgSO4 ? does it have the same behavior?)...
BTW, I like your idea of oxidation of IPA, but two things limits it to me.. the price of it here is generally high (can be even more expensive than
acetone) ,and also to separate the final mix.. So oxidizing ethanol (air, Cu and heat) can be a more better alternative, because of its very low cost
and also the facility to remove the Ca acetate frm the mix and applying Piria process..But I'm worried bout the purification, which maybe can be
worse than using IPA method..
[Edited on 15-11-2007 by Aqua_Fortis_100%]
"The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant."
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not_important
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Calcium chloride forms addition 'compounds' with the lower alcohols that are similar to those it forms with water. I believe that with MeOH and EtOH
you get CaCl2.3ROH, with the propyl alcohols its 2ROH or 1:1. Fairly mild heat decomposes the compound, so you can distill the alcohol off of it. It
does form complexes with some ketones, but these tend to be fairly weak and the water or alcohol ones with form in preference.
Almost all of the addition or 'water of crystallation' drying agents lose water on heating, its always better to stir the liquid with the drying agent
and then filter it off rather than distilling from the drying agent. MgSO4 and CuSO4 are an order of magnitude better than Na2SO4, MgSO4 generally is
cheaper and easier to deal with than than CuSO4, and CaSO4 is several orders of magnitude better than both those. Sodium sulfate is fairly slow
acting as well, but is cheap and easy to regenerate, and is neutral and thus non-reactive to most organics.
http://www.mallbaker.com/techlib/documents/americas/3045.htm...
The sulfates don't form addition compounds with the alcohols, the other MX2 halides do to some degree or other, CaCl2 is both the cheapest and easiest
to obtain.
The oxidation of ethanol that you refer to is the same as used for IPA. It's a bit tricky doing it right using air, as you're dealing with a
flammable if not explosive mixture; you've got to control the mix ratios and the flow rates to keep control. Too much air and you burn your product
to CO2 and H2O.
The acetone from decomposing calcium acetate needs to be treated with an oxidising agent such as KMnO4, then a weak base such as NaHCO3, to remove
aldehydes, unsaturated compounds, and acids. Filter, fractionally distill, treat with CaCl2, filter, distill, dry with CaSO4. Yields are 75% at
best, the heating is a little tricky as you're dealing with a solid, overheating can cause some decomposition with ketene being forms - nasty stuff to
inhale.
From IPA it's fractional distillation, CaCl2, filter, fractionate, final drying. Unconverted IPA is recovered as the high boilers from the 1st
distillation, and from the CaCl2 addition product.
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Aqua_Fortis_100%
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Thank you againg.
Today, traveling in the neighbourhood , I found a very interesting soap and cosmetics making shop and browsed their aisles... I found some
interesting, pure and much CHEAPER chemicals.. just purchased 1L of 100% IPA for half the price that is generally found (their absolute ethanol is
1/3 of the usual!) , and also 500g of pure white MgSO4.7H2O for very few money... I also purchased in hardware 2 kg of plaster of paris, to make some
more sodium sulfate ( according to frogfot's page.. I did tried this one time with less amounts and worked nicely )..
So in IPA oxidation, if I redistill the final mix an pass it again along the hot Cu pipe/with Cu powder , the yield of acetone is increased or just
this will risk decompose the earlier formed acetone (??)
[Edited on 16-11-2007 by Aqua_Fortis_100%]
"The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant."
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bio2
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Here are some references on the behavior of
acetone/water for everyones enjoyment.
J Phys Chem 3, 317 (1899)
Ind Eng Chem 38, 751 (1946)
Ind Eng Chem 44, 1872 (1952)
Z Phys Chem. 39, 485; 40, 440; 41, 331 (1902)
[Edited on by bio2]
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MagicJigPipe
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Wow... Isopropanol costing more than acetone? That's crazy...
Pure paraformaldehyde in beauty stores?? Are you sure? What is it used for?
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