FriendlyFinger - 18-5-2005 at 20:44
Hi there,
Swim did a Al/Hg on 50g P2P the other day using Sheet aluminium ala Osmium style. The Al sheet was put through a paper shredder you know the
one's that shred and cut so you end up with curled strips about 20mm X 5mm. Anyway this was refluxed for 8 hours and stirred for total of 20 Hrs
from start of reflux.
Just about all of the Al was reduced and the liquid was almost clear/slightly yellow. Looked nice, decanted that, hit the junk with 40% NaOH,
extracted with IPA X3 filtered then began to distill. Thats when colour went from almost clear to dark orange, and yield was shocking. 22%
WHY? When the IPA was pooled together, it was only filtered and not dried, also it wasn't filtered very well because it still looked a little
frosty. When distilling, a solid was caked on the flask wall. So did swims freebase react with the NaOH thet was still there from not drying? Does
that happen?
Thanks,
FF
[Edited on 19-5-2005 by FriendlyFinger]