johnfireball
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Ethers
Hi all,
I am making diethyl ether from scratch for use in my model diesel engines and am finding it painfully labour intensive to get 90% ethanol from
alcohol brewing. I am using drain cleaner as a source of sulphuric acid and it works ok so long as it's well heated ( 200 degrees c) before use. I am
wondering could I substitute this methylated spirit www.decorireland.com/DEC1/DEC1-SHOP/pdfs/Safety%20Data%20She... for the ethanol and get a similar product without any further risk. The ether is
really required only for getting the engine started and aiding the mixing of oil and paraffin.
All comments welcome thanks.
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Maroboduus
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It will work (I did it back before I had a good still), but you'll get some methyl ethyl ether as well, which has an even lower boiling point. Very
little dimethyl ether will be produced.
If by brewing 90% ethanol you mean distilling, this is easier with a good fractionating column. I can go from 40% to 90% in one distillation with a
300mm Vigreux column. This isn't even a very careful distillation. I don't bother to insulate the column.
But for your use it sounds like using meths should be just fine.
You do know about ether peroxides, right? Don't want any unexpected detonations so I thought I'd ask.
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XeonTheMGPony
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you can get a fuel called bioflame, it is essentially 9x% ethanol, recently I found some where the denaturing agent was ethyl acetate, score was all
that rung out from the brain, reflux over sodium hydroxide and distill for 100% ethanol as the hydroxide phase will trap any moisture (Well enough for
it to be a non issue!
For those of us in Canada it is found at Canadian tire and in Home hard ware stores for the most part
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Meltonium
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There is an easy source of ethanol located at Home Depot. In the Paint section there should be a place where there is a whole bunch of different
laquer thinners. The one with ethanol is labeled as "Green Paint Thinner" look on the back and it should say "Contains ethyl alcohol and methyl
alcohol" Where I am, it is 95% ethanol with some ethyl acetate and methanol according to the MSDS. You can separate these by distilling over some
sodium hydroxide and BOOM, you have nearly anhydrous ethanol.
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XeonTheMGPony
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the stuff I am referring to contains no methanol groups but that too is correct, we do not have it here, or at least not that I have ever seen.
they do have larger jugs of the bio flam that are 98% ethanol with a 1-2% isopropyle group in it.
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Melgar
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Ethyl acetate and methanol probably wouldn't be a problem if you're just using it as starting fluid. Really, I usually get my ether (and heptane) by
distilling starting fluid from the auto parts store, which is only like $3 for an 11-ounce aerosol can of it. I've seen diesel starting fluid for
sale at feed stores and auto parts store before, but it's always pretty expensive, it usually seems to come in these heavy-duty steel cylinders, and
I'm not sure what's in it. I know you're not supposed to use heptane in diesel engines, but ether is apparently okay.
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Texium
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Thread Moved
25-11-2016 at 08:46 |
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