Hi @ky_cbd, thanks for chiming in. My current buchner setup is 185mm funnel with 5L flask. I’ve ordered a 250mm funnel with 1.5 micron filtering paper and expecting them arrive tomorrow.
I use the round filter papers and they fit perfectly fine, however now that you mentioned it reminded me that after the solution get filtered out and funnel is empty I could hear a hissing sounds from the edges, even though I would pray some ethanol around the edges with the pump on before pouring the solution. I will definitely take that into consideration.
If it is silicone grease on the joints, this could be that.
I use Krytox LVP for static vacuum joints or GPL-206 for swiveling/dynamic vacuum joints. Apiezion-501 is just like the Krytox LVP. All of these are fluoroalkoxy and PTFE based greases, so they don’t ooze or vaporize from joints, nor mix with disty, even if you pour disty through the greased joint… as long as you don’t wipe it around on the grease! If a blob gets in the disty, it stays in one piece and can be mechanically removed.
It certainly can, but it generally melts and runs easier in hot disty. The bigger problem is cheap silicone grease (like the stuff for bathroom faucet plumbing), vaseline or other crap grease not rated for vacuum applications, but which is sometimes used in a pinch. I really think those images from @greenXlabs are showing some bizarre form of exogenous contamination event like this, rather than a naturally occurring lipid content.
It is very unlikely to be sugars based on the phone call we had and the additional picture he sent me. Lipids and/or grease seem the most likely culprits.
we use 10:1 ratio. we do a 2 step winterization. 1 at room temp then filter through small micron paper filter. then another in a 24 hour freeze then filtering through carbon silicate filteration setup. Anything we missed we can collect through our distillation during 1st past. mind you we are very patient and run a little longer dwell times along with going over into the main body a little longer
