Chemical Forums
Chemistry Forums for Students => Organic Chemistry Forum => Topic started by: nmetallo89 on June 10, 2009, 10:48:13 AM
-
I work with a solution that contains Diethylene glycol monobutyl ether acetate and ethylene glycol monobutyl ether. However it is too powerful and reacts too fast. Is there any chemical I can use to dilute or reduce the reaction rate of this solution?
Thanks
-
What's the reaction in question? Can you cool the reaction? At a first approximation, why not something like hexane?
-
The solution reacts with PVA film containing polyurethane inks to soften the inks. Now the reaction is very fast when the solution is applied to the film and the ink clumps up. I need the ink so slowly dissolve instead of just clumping up as soon as the solution touches it. The process doesn't allow the solution to be cooled to lower the rate of the reaction. I need something with a higher flash point than Hexane.
-
I surmise the problem may be the reverse of that described. While it is true that the ink is clumping up, that may be due to self-assembly rather than the solvent being too active. Because you are describing unknown (to me) polymeric materials, could the solvent interactions of the ink be weak compared to the ink-ink interactions? That is, while the solvent intercedes with the carrier polymer, it does not interact strongly enough with the ink. Simply decreasing the number and availability of solvent electrons or protons may slow the solvation of ink-carrier polymer complex but doing that appears to simply not work. I presume other solvents were tried. I am guessing this solvent mixture actually does something, but simply does not lead to a successful solution.
I might try to find solvents that can dissolve the ink. For that, you don't need the polymer or the ink-polymer complex. I would start with high concentrations of that solvent and begin to increase the amount of the cellusolve solvents to break the complex.