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Chemistry Forums for Students => Organic Chemistry Forum => Topic started by: BBGuest42 on October 09, 2022, 05:11:26 AM

Title: Methylene Chloride Extraction: am I doing this right?
Post by: BBGuest42 on October 09, 2022, 05:11:26 AM
Hi,amateur noob here. I have access to a product that claims to consist of 80-90% methylene chloride, 0-10% tetracloroethylene, 0-5% propyl acetate, 0-5% isoproponal, and 0-5% ethanol. My objective is to isolate and extract as much methylene chloride as possible. Here's what I normally do :

I first add 250ml to a sep funnel, along with 250ml distilled water. After shaking and waiting for layers to separate, I'm usually left with roughly 225ml of the product on the bottom layer. After one wash I drain it into a separate container, add about a tablespoon of magnesium sulfate, let it sit for 15 minutes and then coffee filter it into a 2 neck 2l round bottom flask. I repeat this 3 more tines until I have a liter ready to distill. Once it's all together in the rbf I distill until the temp reaches 47 C, keeping everything that came over and tossing the rest.

Does any of this sound correct, or is there anything I could do differently?

Thanks
Title: Re: Methylene Chloride Extraction: am I doing this right?
Post by: Hunter2 on October 09, 2022, 08:33:16 AM
Why you do not ddo a estillation directly. With the Extraktion you remove the alcohols, what is not much. All others are less watersolouble.
Title: Re: Methylene Chloride Extraction: am I doing this right?
Post by: rolnor on October 09, 2022, 07:18:56 PM
It seems like a good suggestion to distill, but you need a good column to remove such low concentrations  of impurity. Why do you want to use this non-pure solvent? What are you gona use the DCM for? Maybe you can use some other solvent  that is available in pure state?