11-30-02 04:50
No 384885
In a dream....
Hand tearing foil is far easier and faster. Pieces about 2 inches by 2 inches or a bit smaller work fine just put a few at a time in the coffee grinder. Scissors hurt and are slow as can be.
A hand held stick blender does a great job mixxing the polar solvent and non polar solvent. Very fast and easy.
If decanting off the polar solvent from a beaker instead of decanting directly into the seperatory funnel, try decanting into a mason jar. You can leave all of the spent crapola behind and lose very little solvent by pouring from the mason jar. If you are being sloppy you could even pour from the 1st mason jar to a 2nd before pouring into the funnel so you get rid of all the crapola. Better to keep the seperatory funnel as clean as possible. The lip on the jar does a good job catching crapola. Its much easier to decant perfectly from a smaller beaker that is not full of lots of crapola.
If the reaction gets too hot and is spurting out the top, turn off the stirring for a minute or 2. This is far easier than trying to ice the flask in a hurry though icing is probably better. Things calm down quickly. Adding the nitromethane over about 5 minutes instead of all at once then adding the mdp2p slowly works well without boiling over.
You can always put a funnel in the top of the condensor with saran wrap over it and a hole in the wrap so atleast most of it will pour back down if you are worried. A funnel in the condensor is a good precaution.
Mason jars are good cheap semi disposable glassware. 2 liter measuring cups made from pyrex you can probably bounce off cement and not break. Both are good replacements for beakers most of the time. Never mind the fact that you can buy a case of quart canning jars for less than 1 quart beaker.
Making a decent stand for the seperatory funnel will save you money on broken funnels, and makes the washings go much easier. Sucks when you are too worried about breaking the funnel. A big rubber stopper just below the stopcock and a well secured top part of a chopped big plastic funnel do a good job for supporting the funnel. The rubber stopper also gives the funnel a bit of cushioning when you set it down. Those O rings on labstands suck nuts to work with when you are using a 1 liter or bigger funnel.
After seperating a wash use the wash water for a preliminary cleaning while waiting for the next wash to settle out.
If the hole in a rubber stopper is too big and you need a snug fit wrap some electrical tape around the object. Works fine though it will not last forever. 3M makes far better electrical tape than that dollar store crapola.
Love to see what other tips people have.
No knowledge of chemistry, just follow the directions on the box mix.
Found a good quick primar on keytones, alchohols, amines, aldehydes and more at http://www.chemhelper.com/tutorials.html
