Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Getting crystals out of a flask?

Agent MadHatter - 11-10-2009 at 16:29

I've always had issues with this...Say your recrystallizing something, anything, and you pour it back into your erlenmeyer flask, then evaporate the solvent.... Now your stuck with your product in the bottom of the flask.

How do you get these out? Or what I'll do, is add more solvent, then pour into something flat so I can scrap it up and store for later use.

crazyboy - 11-10-2009 at 17:55

You recrystallize in a beaker or dish.

kclo4 - 11-10-2009 at 21:16

Prod at it with a stir stick to separate the large solid mass of crystal and shake it around a bunch to get it to fall into pieces small enough to go through the opening of the flask.

MJ_ - 12-10-2009 at 00:55

Try recrystallizing in something like a shallow dish, I wouldnt bother repouring it back into the erlenmeyer

Panache - 21-10-2009 at 04:37

smash the flask

stateofhack - 21-10-2009 at 05:36

Quote: Originally posted by Panache  
smash the flask


and vac filtrate!

HydroCarbon - 4-11-2009 at 08:45

I would just redissolve them in minimal solvent and evaporate in a dish or small beaker. Be sure to rinse the beaker after pouring it out with clean solvent to collect any solution drops that stayed behind, evaporate the rinse with the solution.

Paddywhacker - 5-11-2009 at 21:18

I thought it strange that the procedures when I went through university specified recrystallizing in 50 ml Erlenmeyer flasks.

Fortunately the demonstrators gave us enough rope to allow the use of a beaker, but many students stuck to the letter of the instructions.