So let us say that there was someone who was obviously not thinking very much and in the absence of a proper weighing boat, used a piece of aluminum foil for weighing his NaOH. The NaOH was transferred to the cacti solution, and when it came to transferring the final amounts, he used a small amount of water... sizzle, boil, heat, gas... a few drops were transferred to the solution before the 'dish' was put down. Apparently this reaction forms sodium aluminate. I was planning on pulling with sunflower oil and salting with vinegar. Will this remain in the product? Wikipedia says it is soluble in water and alcohol. The MSDS says it is soluble in cold water and insoluble in methanol. It also says a lot of nasty things can happen if it is ingested. Advice is much appreciated.
Edit: Upon thinking about it, I guess it would be ionized at this point, so I am worrying about the aluminate ion being pulled by the sunflower oil. My semester and a half so far of college chem only goes so far and I am not sure whether or not the oils nonpolarity prevents the ions extraction.
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