i forgot which plastics dont dissolve with xylene and limonene can someone remind me please?

None of them.

Use glass



Source

hehe i use plastic that i know doesnt dissolve by testing it with small amount of said solvent.. however i want to order a tap to fit to the bottom of a 20 litre plastic bucket.. and well i obviously cant use a glass one now can i

ive read it around here somewhere which ones are ok, just cant remember where and the tap ive found is Polyethylene so i thought id just ask

also ive found for larger extractions glass is actually quite a liability. if your doing 1.5litre 100gram extractions or acid cooking and reducing to around that quantity then 2 litre glass mason jars are great. if your using 3 litres then ive run into problems in the past particularly if your keeping them heated in very hot water it seems constant exposure to strong bases and heat and then pressure from heating if you dont burp the jars can lead to cracked/smashed jars and a big mess! plastic in many ways if it is the correct kind is safer imo.....

What I'm telling you is that anyone who says it's ok, is wrong.

The only plastic that has ever been discussed as suitable for use is HDPE, and Phillips, the company that manufactures it, explicitly states that it degrades when exposed to the solvents in question. Therefore, despite what you may have read, it is NOT safe to use.

There is no reason that any glassware needs to be subjected to extreme heat stress, but if for some reason, you think it does, you can get borosilicate glassware, which will hold up just fine.

Plastic is not safer. period.

Please do not spread misinformation.

^you do not need to fire posts every 2 minutes. You can edit a post to add extra information if needed.


dissolving is a very dramatic damage an organic solvent can have on a plastic. Many of the plastics will be affected in ways not as apparent as dissolving or melting, such as slow degradation and leaching of plastic constituents into the solvent. This creates a safety risk (i.e. your plastic may give in after a few uses or given enough time) and a health risk (ingestion of plastic components). Furthermore, solvent may be one insult to the plastic, solvent AND base is another beast you have to take into consideration.

You cannot go safer than good lab glass; it is an investment in many different ways. You could try to contain it within a plastic bucket if you're afraid of breaking it.

Of course second best to glass is HDPE container but that doesn't even come close to glass.

Why do you need a tap for a 20 litre bucket? What are you doing?

its for cactus extractions, and people use 20litre or 5 gallon depending on your part of the world hdpe2 buckets, ive never heard them saying its dangerous you cant exactly get a 20 litre giant glass bucket now can you... and if you can i sure as hell wouldnt want to order it off the internet!

the tap is so i can let out the basic soup and decant the last bit into a column to make the solvent extraction easier this has all been suggested by other knowledgable people on the cactus preperation section on the nexus so i dont see why you should be attacking me so badly for considering using PLASTICS!!!! i just oculdnt remember if PE was suitable maybe ill take my question over there!

and i still believe my previous statement holds ground in my experience a 3 litre mason jar that is filled repeatedly for months on end with basic solution and stood in a bucket of hot water which is a common practise for keeping emulsions at bay and for pulling more alkaloids efficiently. is liable to crack.

It's called a carboy, and why not? It's got plenty of "legitimate" uses.


I'm not attacking you, I'm simply telling you that exposing any plastic to the solvents in question is unsafe. If you use an HDPE container for basifying your mixture, that may be fine, but exposing that plastic container to petrochemical solvents (or d-limonene) is unsafe. That is all I am saying...there is no reason that you should construe this as an attack on you.


I find the situation you present here a little far-fetched if one is not engaged in commercial extractions...but I hardly know everyone's situation. The simple solution would be to ditch the mason jar and invest in lab glass. If you're doing that much extracting, it's obviously a worthwhile investment.

I think highRvibratoryfreq is referring to a method I am working on at the moment. It's in this thread, here. I am not using buckets, and it is not commercial sized. I am actually using wine bottles. I am trying to make a method that streamlines extraction made from ordinary household items and some hardware store items.

I guess since I am here, would it be ok to use silicon sealant in contact with a non-polar solvent?

Would the issue of plastic in contact with NP solvents be fixed if one used D-Limonene?

I am definitely concerned with making a safe tek, so any advice you can give I appreciate!

And highRvibratoryfreq, I wouldn't try this out just yet. It may be an utter failure. I wouldn't want two people screwing up extractions, when it could just be one of us, and my set up is pretty much built, already. I'll let you know the results shortly (maybe today even).

ah well ok you could use a demi john (carboy) for sure. but its impractical for processing cactus as you cant fit the head of a mixing bit in there. and yes there would be no problem ordering one i agree there.

sorry i just felt a little bit like i was being told off! i do however appreciate your concerns and will take them into consideration.

and as for my far fetched situation i was running no more than 400 grams of bark per time in the past. but this was over a period of years. now like i stated the 2 litre mason jars never cracked on me. but when i tried larger 3 litre jars then i ran into problems with them cracking on me. so i was just relaying my experience thats all. i guess for the a/b or stb extractions on bark a demi john would be quite suitable.

one more thing.. how plausible is it for plastic impurites residues or whatever to migrate from a nps, that was titrated with acidic solution and then recrystallized via dual solvents eg acetone. im pretty sure any impuritys would get left behind apart from excess acid from over titrations... what are your thoughts?

Hi pea body i wasnt going to try the new method discussed in that thread. phlux suggested adding a tap to the bottom of the mixing container, so you can decant the soup and pour the last bit of solvent into a column just so its easier to get the last bit of nps out. and i was going to order a tap. one i found was Polyethylene so i posted here if that was suitable but turns out it most likely isnt..

how about a metal tap or would oxides from the metal leach into the nps aswell?

Oops! My bad.

Metal is fine for the NP solvents. It's what they come packaged in!

I don't know about silicone sealants...I would do some research into that before using it. I would probably stay away from it (that's just me personally), but it might not be a problem if some of the things that came up with a quick google search are true.

D-Limonene also degrades plastics (including hdpe). The bottles I got from GT warped over time, and GT now sells all their d-limo products in glass bottles.


I'm no chemist, but cleaning crystallized salts with acetone or mek has been discussed as a viable way to remove potential plasticizing agents. My view is why have to put yourself through the hassle to begin with when you can just avoid plastics. There was a thread on it a while back, you can read it here. I wasn't trying to tell you off, it's just that when I see oft-repeated information that has become outdated or shown to be wrong, I like to try to nip it in the bud so as to prevent it from continuing to spread

thanks for the link that thread should be a sticky as somebody advised so other people can find it easily, as it is quite an important topic.. it even talks about the glass etching problem with mason jars which i was mentioning earlier in this thread.

as for my situation unless i can find a cheap open glass vessel similar size and shape to a 20 litre bucket then, my most practical option is still to use the 20 litre hdpe2 bucket i have

seeing as all my product is being acid salted and recrystallized in acetone as it needs to be, i dont have to worry about contamination. I will however avoid the PE tap and will source an either metal or hdpe2 one same as the bucket.

Thanks Snozz!!

I have read a bit, too. I think silicon is actually a pretty good one to work with, as even if it breaks down, it's still non-toxic. There is a little debate about the toxicity of silicon, specifically breast implants. There has been no concrete evidence to show any ill-effects from silicon contact or ingestion. I would think something people carry around inside their bodies and typically have no ill-effects is safe enough to work with. This is perfect, as some of the components on my device would have silicon in contact with NP solvents, as well as a basic solution.

It got me thinking about my model plane. It is nitro powered, meaning it runs off of a mixture of nitro-methanol (about 10-20% of the fuel) and castor oil (the remaining 80-90% of the fuel). The fuel lines are made of silicon tubing. For my design I need a soft, clear tube, and I think silicon tubing fits the bill. It's not as clear as the vinyl tubing I was originally going to use, but should work just as well. I know for a fact the fuel for my plane does not break down this silicon tubing, and I'm thinking Xylene, naphtha and D-Limo would be ok, as well.

So, all in all, my design should have only glass and silicon in contact with any of the fluids.

Edit:
Never mind all of that.... I just read silicon is adversely effected by strong acids and bases. I'll do some tests of my own to see if it holds up under the basic conditions of a STB extraction. It will still work with the vinyl tubing, but will be slightly more complicated.