[simple]

I have an identification test using FTIR .The test is to 30 ml of the Ephedrine Elixir add 2ml of HCL ,extract with 2 20ml quantities of ether and discard the ether.Add sufficient %M ammonia solution to the aqueous phase to make it alkaline,extract with 2 30ml quantities of ether,wash the combined ether extracts with 3 15ml quantities of water,dry with anhydrous sodium sulphate ,filter and evaporate the filtrate  to dryness.

I have done all the extraction steps but the step where they mentioned about dry with anhydrous sodium sulphate i'am fixed .I would like to get some ideas how to carry out drying with anhydrous sulhate.Any appartus required.Any ideas will be appreciated

Question2
I have another identification test which says the product used for scalp application need to dry at a certian temperature under a stream of nitrogen.I would like to know how to carry out this drying step with Nitrogen.

Many thanx

[Mitch]

Q1.) You add sodium sulphate to the beaker, stir untill you are confident it has soaked up any remaining water and prtoceed to the next step.