Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Dean-Stark adapters redux

chemrox - 13-2-2009 at 11:43

I have several Dean-Stark type water removal adapters. One of them has a long skinny side column that is closed at the bottom. Another has a cock at the bottom of a fatter side column. I tried using the second for a water producing reaction and was almost deceived into thinking the reaction was complete. I decided to weigh the water evolved and found it to be somewhat less than theoretical. This process always goes to completion. I'm back to "long skinny" and glad I have it. The lesson is I should have run a callibration on the fat one. I had checked the long skinny long before. In toluene the water interface is quite a pronounced meniscus.