Housane
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Weird White film on measuring cylinder
Hi,
I was extracting limonene from oranges using a distillation and collecting the product in a clear plastic measuring cylinder after it had finished no
layers were formed but when the water was poured off the measuring cylinder had a white coating on it. i can't get this off and have tried washing
with water. the cylinder smells strongly of oranges so i think it is limonene. Any idea how to recover this???
[Edited on 3-10-2018 by Housane]
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Heptylene
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Have you tried washing with a solvent like ethanol? If you want to keep what you remove from the cylinder you can the evaporate/boil off the solvent.
If you just want to wash the cylinder, soap could work too.
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MrHomeScientist
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Perhaps something slightly dissolved the plastic in the cylinder? So the white film might actually be etched and "frosted" plastic (analogy to frosted
glass).
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wg48
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Lemonene dissolves polystyrene so if your plastic cylinder was polystyrene you may have irreversible damaged it and contaminated the limonene.
Borosilicate glass:
Good temperature resistance and good thermal shock resistance but finite.
For normal, standard service typically 200-230°C, for short-term (minutes) service max 400°C
Maximum thermal shock resistance is 160°C
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fusso
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Quote: Originally posted by wg48  | Lemonene dissolves polystyrene so if your plastic cylinder was polystyrene you may have irreversible damaged it and contaminated the limonene.
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Can transferring the limonene to a glass RBF then re-steam-distill purify it?
[Edited on 03/10/18 by fusso]
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Housane
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Hi i will try washing it with soap. the cylinder is made of PP
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Herr Haber
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So is the blue gl45 cap I have on my limonene.
It is slightly being attacked even though liquid limonene never touches it.
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XeonTheMGPony
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Welcome to the wonderful world of material compatibility charts, the first thing you look at befor even thinking about plastic!
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RogueRose
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I'm guessing the limonene oxidized or partially dissolved the plastic. IIRC when I looked at the substance it had warnings about some plastics.
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DavidJR
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Yeah limonene isn't great with plastics in general
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