Poekus wrote:[...]
A bit off topic:
I recently added some anhydrous magnesium sulfate (baked in oven for two hours) to some d-limonene to see if any water was absorbed. Strangely the magnesium sulfate kind of got dissolved forming a second small slurry layer. Still I don't get this as the d-limonene clearly formed two layers when water was added indicating that it's non-polar properties were still the same.
This implies that although the d-limonene was formed nice seperation with water it still contained water by itself, or the magnesium sulfate I bought was not actually magnesium sulfate??
Actually I had the same happening with adding the magnesium sulfate to acetone. It almost got fully dissolved. This might have had something to do with high water content of the acetone. Still I was under the assumption that it couldn't get dissolved in water, just absorbing it.
Limonene slowly oxidises to carvone and a few other things. This is more polar and can hold on to a bit more water. If you were to keep that magnesium sulfate I wouldn't be surprised if you found it to smell slightly like mint and dill beyond the citrusy odour.
Ether dissolves a noticeable percentage of water despite having good separation.
If you were to add saturated sodium carbonate solution to a (single phase) mixture of limonene and isopropanol, three phases would form (or four phases, if you count the sodium carbonate that crystallises out!) This may yet prove to be relevant.
βThere is a way of manipulating matter and energy so as to produce what modern scientists call 'a field of force'. The field acts on the observer and puts him in a privileged position vis-à-vis the universe. From this position he has access to the realities which are ordinarily hidden from us by time and space, matter and energy. This is what we call the Great Work."
β Jacques Bergier, quoting Fulcanelli