Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Jacketed beaker for evaporation?

Fyndium - 21-9-2020 at 03:05

I was wondering if I could push steam of water, acetone or some other media through a jacketed beaker in order to evaporate/dry substances that are not to be overheated? What material of tubing could resist acetone vapors? PTFE tubes tend to be very rigid.

Sulaiman - 21-9-2020 at 03:48

google "drying pistol"

Fyndium - 21-9-2020 at 03:56

I'm aware of that device, but these beakers are more readily and cheaper available to me and could also have a dual use as temp controlled reaction vessels.

Sulaiman - 21-9-2020 at 07:32

sorry, I just meant that you could maybe use the same principle,
a reflux condenser and suitable b.p. liquid with your jacketed beaker .. recycling the liquid.

macckone - 21-9-2020 at 09:55

Or you could just use a temperature controlled oil bath.
PID controllers are cheap and can be rigged to off the shelf hot plates from walmart.
That is half of what a rotovap is.

The other half being the rotating joint and motor.

Fyndium - 21-9-2020 at 13:28

Sulaiman,

I got that. My concept was actually just that of a drying pistol. I would practically distill the medium through the flask, and lead the lower port in a return tube with reflux condenser for exhaust. The inlets for the flask are quite small for effective vapor transport and could cause significant velocity increase, but considering the size of the vessel of 500mL or similar it shouldn't be an issue.

Bath is another idea, and temp control could actually come handy anyways. My induction plate has steps from 0 to 9, and with step 1 it already causes 1 liter of silicon oil to reach 120C and step 2 over 160C so it is extremely overpowered for such a small setup.

I'm currently using either oven, air drying or vacuum desiccator - or just as a desiccator until as soon as I get the vacuum leak fixed.

Dr.Bob - 22-9-2020 at 16:34

Using steam to warm a beaker or similar is nothing new, we did that to heat solutions when I was in college. Every lab had steam connections back then. Now none do... I'm just really old.

But if you want to try jacketed beakers, I have some small ones, about 50 and 100 mls, I think. I used to use similar systems to keep buchner funnels warm or additiono funnels cold. For many cases, just using a beaker ina water bath would also work, but is limited to 100C.