Hi, everybody quick question.

In Q21's tek 2 it talks about placing the naphtha into your freezer for quite a few hours.

Seeing as how the fumes from this solvent are toxic, and how he states that your freezer will smell of the chemical, SWIM is not wanting to put it in with their food.

~Question~

Can one place the naphtha in a small cooler loaded with ice to make it precipitate the crystal? If it really really has to get colder than 32*F maybe dry ice can be used in a cooler to lower the temp extra low?

your input is appreciated!

~Don Juan~

Just put it in a container... like a jar with a lid. And it wont leak out the smell.

Dry ice can be used, but SWIM just uses a mason jar, and makes sure it's completely sealed. She's never had a problem with it escaping and making the freezer smell.

Put it in your freezer, the fumes are not toxic, they are only toxic if you inhale them and even if you do inhale them they are not that toxic (don't inhale them though)

Yea...theoretically this should work if you have enough ice to drop the temp low enough. I've never tried this method, but if I were going to give it a shot, I'd probably pick up a real cheap styrofoam cooler and a bunch of dry ice from my local supermarket and try it like that as dry ice should get things colder than regular ice.

However, if you have a pyrex container with a lid or really any glass container with a lid, there's no harm in putting your solvent in the freezer as no fumes will escape. I've used various pyrex dishes with snap-on plastic lids and never had any noticeable naphtha residue/smell in my freezer.

hope that helps

dry ice is fun, none of that waiting overnight for a morning blizzard

20 minutes and you've got snowstorm in that little jar

wow thanks for all the replies,

I thought the goal was to have it in a large surface area pan to help evap the naphtha once it has been removed from the freezer and to make collection easier...

how would one collect the snowflakes if its in the bottom of a large qtuart or pint mason jar? wouldn't they stick all over the sides/bottom?

sorry for so many Q's theres got to be a first for everything/everbody

MASON JAR with a lid...everytime.

I use 1/2 pint or sometimes even 1/4 pint. Shouldn't have any issue scraping them up. The smaller surface area also helps grow larger xtals.

I made the mistake with my first extraction to just put the naphta in bowls with some foil over them. Ruined my fridge. That's about 1,5 years ago, and my freezer still smells like naphta! If I put a pizza in the freezer, I have to eat it in a few days or my pizza will taste like naphta (That's right, it goes THROUGH the plastic!). Make sure you cover your jars, unless you like naphta-pizza!