I am trying to separate isobutanol from toulene as it is mixed in at about 10% isobutanol.
The isobutanol is not wanted as it poisons the catalyst, i have tried water washes as it is water soluble.
Does anyone know if this is possible, or should i go hunting for cleaner solvents?
Thank you for reading
You can remove with azeotropic distillation, but you’ll still need a GC to be sure your solvent is good before using in a reaction. Toluene is cheap, just buy better toluene.
Its doable.. but a lot of work. The “quick” version is 10x water washes → dry with h2o desiccant of choice → cacl2, silica gel filtration would also work as final step but lossy.
A water wash can remove some isobutanol, but because it’s also fairly soluble in toluene, it’s usually not very efficient for getting down to the trace levels needed to protect a catalyst
water washes should get you most of the way, then distillation over Sodium. pretty sure that’s not at all worth it, and just buying clean toluene is the way to go.
Holy shit he’s back
Hello Mr Roiplek, I think buying pure solvents is the way to go.
Roiplek , thanks for leaving your hiding place to write me an answer.