Thread: Question about "Pure Acetone"

Hi-

I am using acetone for an herbal extract process and using it as a solvent. I wanted to know if placed in a water bath at a stable 110 degrees farenheight overnight would evaporate ALL the "Acetone" from the solution. Although I know the boiling point of Acetone is 132 Degrees farenheight, I would rather stay at a lower temp, less than 110 Farenheight if possible, while still evaporating the harmful solvent from the solution. Hopefully this makes sense and shouldn't be a problem. Otherwise, I will just have to increase the temp of the water bath to allow the acetone to reach it's boiling point, which I'd rather not do at this point in time. Thanks in advance for any help you might be able to offer with this tricky situation. Best to you.

Also, if it will not evaporate all of the Acetone, how much percentage-wise would actually have been evaporated if done the way described above. Any comments or feedback is much appreciated.

As the herbal extract becomes more concentrated (assuming it's significantly less volatile than the solvent), the vapour pressure of the solvent will decrease, making it difficult to remove the last traces of solvent.

Originally Posted by PhDemon

Acetone does not form an azeotrope with water

Interestingly, there seems to be disagreement about this. However, looking at the data that says they do form an azeotrope, the azeotrope is so close to pure acetone that it would be quite difficult to determine whether or not it does.

Originally Posted by PhDemon

I'm relying on half-remembered undergrad chemistry from ~15 yrs ago! I could be wrong about the azeotrope

No, it's not your memory. Wikipedia for example says that they don't form an azeotrope. I did a quick check and found that some say they do and others say they don't.

It seems to me that it would be a rather difficult practical problem, requiring many theoretical plate counts to distinguish between the two.

Thank you guys so much for your prompt replies. I think what I'll do then, since it may take a while for smaller trace amounts to evaporate, is i'll just leave it at 110 Farenheight for a full 24 hrs. and be done with it. I know longer is better, but I feel like this length of time (48 hrs. total, 24 hrs at outside temp 24 hrs. in 110 F waterbath) should be good enough to remove more than 99% of it. If I'm saying something that doesn't make sense, please advise as I'm not exactly an expert with chemicals and solvents, much less even chemistry. Yall are some smart straight shooters though, I'll tell you that much. Really glad to see that you guys are willing to share info and what not. Thanks again you guys.

Seems like I recall a means of extracting acetone using chemical means, easy, but risky. Produced Hexamethylenetriperoxidediamine in the process. That latter being rather interesting stuff. jocular