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Topic: Making glacial acetic acid  (Read 915 times)

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Limon

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Making glacial acetic acid
« on: January 26, 2021, 09:28:02 AM »
Hey everyone!

I've begun to produce some acetic acid (vinegar) by culturing some mother of vinegar. I've read that, pure acetic acid can be a potent solvent, however, separating it from water is tricky, since they're both matching azeotropes and not even fractional distillation will work out.

Does anyone know of any cheap(ish) method to accomplish this? (Im not that interested in getting a very pure batch, 50% or more is good enough for me).

Offline billnotgatez

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Re: Making glacial acetic acid
« Reply #1 on: January 26, 2021, 10:12:23 AM »
... separating it from water is tricky, since they're both matching azeotropes and not even fractional distillation will work out.

...(Im not that interested in getting a very pure batch, 50% or more is good enough for me).

This is confusing
What is the difference between azeotropes and a not pure batch

Offline billnotgatez

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Re: Making glacial acetic acid
« Reply #2 on: January 26, 2021, 10:23:34 AM »
By the way from
https://www.wolframcloud.com/objects/demonstrations/SeparationOfAceticAcidFromWaterUsingEthylAcetateEntrainer-source.nb#:~:text=The%20binary%20mixture%20of%20acetic,of%20a%20severe%20tangent%20pinch.


The binary mixture of acetic acid and water does not form an azeotrope. Despite this, obtaining pure acetic acid (with boiling point 118.1 °C) from a solution of acetic acid and water by distillation is very difficult because of the presence of a severe tangent pinch.


Offline billnotgatez

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Re: Making glacial acetic acid
« Reply #3 on: January 26, 2021, 11:05:02 AM »
Sometimes I wonder

I look up Azeotrope in WIKI and find this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azeotrope#Zeotropy
Quote
Zeotropy[edit]
Combinations of solvents that do not form an azeotrope when mixed in any proportion are said to be zeotropic. Azeotropes are useful in separating zeotropic mixtures. An example is acetic acid and water, which do not form an azeotrope. Despite this, it is very difficult to separate pure acetic acid (boiling point: 118.1 °C) from a solution of acetic acid and water by distillation alone. As progressive distillations produce solutions with less and less water, each further distillation becomes less effective at removing the remaining water. Distilling the solution to dry acetic acid is therefore economically impractical. But ethyl acetate forms an azeotrope with water that boils at 70.4 °C. By adding ethyl acetate as an entrainer, it is possible to distill away the azeotrope and leave nearly pure acetic acid as the residue.

I look up Zeotropy in WIKI
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeotropic_mixture
and there is no mention of acetic acid

I look up Acetic acid in WIKI
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetic_acid
and there is no mention of Zeotropy


As an aside
there is Azeotrope tables in WIKI
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azeotrope_tables
that lists
Quote
acetic acid 118.1C No azeotrope

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