SWIM doesnt have a distiller and he doesnt have access to 190 proof alcohol...or 99% IPA

so SWIM is taking 70% IPA and putting loads of AMS(anhydrous magnesium sulfate) in with it...hoping that it will remove all the water...then a thought came...would it be possible to do the same with say vodka?? granted you would need tons of AMS..but you can then just make it anhydrous again...

so would this work...take 100proof vodka and add TONS of AMS over and over again...filter it as best you can...to get close to 190-200 proof alcohol??? im not even sure you can get 100% ethanol from distilling..but would this work??

We would be talking an awful lot of AMS though.

You can re-use AMS right?

yes you can..just bake it again...SWIM converted 1 pound of epsom salt int AMS.. and he is going to use the THP(percolator) and run the alcohol through it over and over again with AMS and see what happens

I don't know the actual answer to your question. It depends whether water likes AMS more than it likes ethanol. My best guess is that it would not work (i.e., that AMS wouldn't pull H20 out of a water-ethanol mixture).

Also, I think "double distillation" is required to get an alcohol content above 95%. 95 is as high as you can go with simple distillation.

hmmm interesting...i mean..this works for making acetone and MEK anhydrous...

ohh

hmm this may not work at all

well..it was going to be used for dmt extractions and conversions...so i figured i would put it here

In that case, I moved it again to this section where I think it belongs best. It's a bit shoving around but in the end I think it finally reached it's destination.

haha thanks guys

You can dry it to a certain degree with sodium carbonate. It takes a lot. Sodium carbonate is insoluble in IPA but very soluble in water and causes two layers to form, one water, and one IPA. You then decant the IPA and repeat until two layers no longer form and the sodium carbonate looks almost dry. I don't know how much water it pulls out, but it does work.

This is also useful as an A/B extraction trick.

nice thanks dude!!

well you know what...it seems to have worked!!

SWIM put a whole bunch of AMS in a THP and ran the 70% IPA through it a few times...so then SWIM figured it didnt work at all..so he was going to try the sodium carbonate trick...and guess what happened...no layers formed..the sodium carbonate looks 'dry' and granulated...

Jorkest, SWIM will be trying this (desiccant in THP) very soon with acetone and IPA. He'll try it with both AMS and ACS (anhydrous calcium sulfate, oven-dried plaster of paris dry mix), and let you know how it goes. He's just waiting on some funds for the moment.

The idea of using AMS to dry ethanol is a clever one, well done jorkest!

SWIM might do an experiment when he has time. Just a note, anhydrous magnesium sulfate can hold roughly its own weight of water to turn into magnesium sulfate heptahydride. That is, 500g AMS can be used to dry 1 litre of 50% vodka (that contains 500g water).

Magnesium sulfate is insoluble in ethanol.

I was referring strictly to ethanol, not ISA. The question is very simple: is the attraction of water greater towards ethanol or AMS. I'm still betting it's greater toward ethanol--i.e., AMS will have no effect on removing water from ethanol.

Now....it certainly may (probably would) have some effect on very DILUTE ethanol (say, 20% ethanol:80% water). But 70% ethanol and above, my bet is it won't work. I'd like to see. It should be VERY easy to test.

Here is a link that seems to address the issue. It implies that it WOULD WORK! Surprising...

It industry, ethanol is most commonly dried with use of 3A zeolite

I do not think that this "attraction" theory is quite correct. If it were so and water was more attracted towards ethanol than magnesium sulfate, then one could do the opposite; dry magnesium sulfate using ethanol. In addition, if the "attraction" theory were true, then one could not adsorb water into the magnesium sulfate if he was mixing it with just water (which is of course, not true). The water molecules would be "attracted" by the rest of the water molecules and never into the magnesium sulfate.

Magnesium sulfate "traps" water by incorporating it in its crystal structure, I think that it acts as a sink to the water molecules till it saturates. This is how it can dry acetone (which also "attracts" water molecules) and as jorkest reports, IPA.

I won't argue this passionately, since, as I said, I really don't know the answer (and the links I give imply that AMS CAN dry ethanol).

Still though, from a "general chemistry" point of view, I'd say that some level of ES attraction has to play a role--water couldn't get "trapped" in a small place if it were repellant to that space.

Bottom line...the links I gave suggest it works. On an industrial basis, however, the 3A zeolite is used. I've been trying to see if there's a "small quantity" source--don't find one so far. There's a great deal of "zeolite powder" for sale in small lots--but it doesn't sound like the same thing.

AMS doesn't simply trap water, it incorporates the water molecules as a component of a solid crystal lattice, meaning they cease to flow as liquid--they simply are no longer in any sort of liquid form. In this way, I don't think it would really be a matter of equilibrium. By using AMS as a desiccant to dry solvent, one is merely crystallizing magnesium sulfate heptahydride. The AMS itself is water soluble as well, so though SWIM is not sure of this, he would guess that they would tend to form a solution first, then precipitate crystals as the solution becomes oversaturated.