I always found Beaker’s method of swelling wax with a boiling water/iso solution and alumina (described here and here) kind of perplexing. I could not rationalize why a period of boiling would change anything if the solution is brought up to the same concentrations at the end anyway. However if seen as a way to invert or breakdown the emulsion so that it is unstable, such a process makes a lot of sense – and the brief comment about adding “dust” (a flocculating agent) is very suggestive.
2 Likes