messingaroundandfindingout

[messingaroundandfindingout]

While moving out of my dorm, I realized that I had left the jars containing the vegetable oil, water, and ethanol layers in my cabinet. After removing the table salt that I used as a drying agent from the vegetable oil by using a coffee filter and a miniature strainer, it was clear that the mint scented compounds were in all three layers. I think that if I wanted to remove the mint scented and flavored compounds from the ethanol, I would be best off trying to do so by distillation, since vegetable oil has a smoke point of around 204 degrees Celsius and boils at 300 degrees Celsius, while ethanol has a boiling point of 78 degrees Celsius. So due to such a large difference in the boiling points, a simple distillation would work in this case.

This however, would require larger volumes of ethanol, water, and vegetable oil meaning that I would have to wait a few months to try it out when I can legally purchase ethanol in forms other than small bottles of extract.

Empty Hot Sauce Bottles are Bad Separatory Funnels

So I decided, in order to be able to prepare materials for experiments at home, one of the first things I'd have to get good at would be separating out ethanol from mint, almond, and vanilla extracts to use as a solvent. Why? Because ethanol, with a density of 0.79 g/mL, is less dense than vegetable oil (0.91-0.93 g/mL), which in turn is less dense than water (around 1 g/mL). This means, that despite ethanol being miscible in water, some of it will still rise to the top when there is a non-polar layer (in this case vegetable oil) to separate them. Unfortunately for me though, I have no separatory funnel, and I have yet to see one that is food grade. And while a turkey baster or a meat flavor injector would likely be much better of a separatory funnel than an empty mini Tabasco sauce bottle, I don't currently have either of those.

I thought that a cleaned out mini tabasco bottle would be the next best thing, and I think it was, but it has the same issue that one encounters if they forget to take the plug off of the top of their separatory funnel: the only way for liquid to exit is the only way for air to enter. This means that the liquid flows very slowly, and may even stop flowing entirely unless the bottle is tilted. Except tilting the bottle brings the top most layer closer to the opening on the bottle. However, it seems that I did obtain some ethanol. Interestingly enough, the aqueous layer, the vegetable oil layer, and the ethanol layer all smelled strongly of mint, though it has yet to be seen if the vegetable oil sample will still smell like mint after the dehydrating agent has had some time to sit.

[messingaroundandfindingout]

Empty Hot Sauce Bottles are Bad Separatory Funnels

So I decided, in order to be able to prepare materials for experiments at home, one of the first things I'd have to get good at would be separating out ethanol from mint, almond, and vanilla extracts to use as a solvent. Why? Because ethanol, with a density of 0.79 g/mL, is less dense than vegetable oil (0.91-0.93 g/mL), which in turn is less dense than water (around 1 g/mL). This means, that despite ethanol being miscible in water, some of it will still rise to the top when there is a non-polar layer (in this case vegetable oil) to separate them. Unfortunately for me though, I have no separatory funnel, and I have yet to see one that is food grade. And while a turkey baster or a meat flavor injector would likely be much better of a separatory funnel than an empty mini Tabasco sauce bottle, I don't currently have either of those.

I thought that a cleaned out mini tabasco bottle would be the next best thing, and I think it was, but it has the same issue that one encounters if they forget to take the plug off of the top of their separatory funnel: the only way for liquid to exit is the only way for air to enter. This means that the liquid flows very slowly, and may even stop flowing entirely unless the bottle is tilted. Except tilting the bottle brings the top most layer closer to the opening on the bottle. However, it seems that I did obtain some ethanol. Interestingly enough, the aqueous layer, the vegetable oil layer, and the ethanol layer all smelled strongly of mint, though it has yet to be seen if the vegetable oil sample will still smell like mint after the dehydrating agent has had some time to sit.

[messingaroundandfindingout]

I enjoy experiments, but don't really get to perform ones that I designed myself. And since doing things the proper way would require buying a lot of equipment that would quickly become expensive, why not DIY it? That way, not only can I perform these in the comfort of my own home, but also, I can decide for all of my equipment to be made from cookware, and that all of my solvents, drying agents, reagents, and other compounds that I use would be edible. By doing it like this, the products made might be something I can make use of, like in cooking or by making things smell nice. Is this going to require a lot more research than if I didn't care about it being edible? Probably. Would it inefficient doing it this way instead of buying equipment online? Yeah, but this way everything I'm using is food grade. Despite those things, am I going to try doing something of this nature whenever I have free time, improving my technique as I go? Absolutely.