Working dry

So many of the reactions to isomerize have to be done in dry conditions
Since most of us are no chemists there is much to learn
So tips and tricks to dry your glaswear or reactor
To dry your compounds and reagents and how to keep thing dry during the run
What is it you do ? How and why
One member used his roto on a flame stove to flame dry dry his powders
Vacuum oven backfilling
Letting compounds evaporate treu drying agent
Placing mol sieves in solvent day before
Etc etc
Bring it on
How to dry !!!
@YeahBet @Photon_noir @eyeworm
@Kingofthekush420

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If you’re serious you can build a permanent dry still. Calcium hydride (CAS: 7789-78-8) beads or other compatible drying agents in the bottom. Only distill as much solvent as needed for the reaction. Remove through dry still septum into baked syringe (that’s cooled down, no vapor driven fountains).

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once youre done washing your glassware, drive off bulk of remaining water with ethanol or acetone until visually dry then into an oven set at ~105C for a bit, then into a desiccator. image

the bottom needs calcium sulfate or another hygroscopic compound to maintain dryness.

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For aprotic solvents, sodium metal is a common powerful drying agent for this method. Then use cannula transfer

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Placing cas numbers when naming compounds help many thx

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Hire a chemist to show you or read this book

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This was our THF still. I think we had a DCM still with another drying agent in it. Cool stuff, never had a still with sodium in it.

Fun fact: quenching calcium hydride was my first lab explosion. I was told to use water by my impatient adviser and control the reaction with ice. She started it and walked out to get the ice and as soon as the door closed behind her the flask that was now billowing out hydrogen gas heated up enough to ignite. It set the entire counter on fire.

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Some benzophenone is used with sodium metal and added to the solvent. Deep purple color indicates absolute dryness. Then the solvent is distilled off that to give actual pure dry solvent.

EDIT: not just dry but also oxygen free

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Hot dry nitrogen works well in conjunction with vacuum to dry a larger apparatus like a reactor, small scale setup can be flushed with inert gas and heated with a blowtorch. If you are distilling solvents and need them dry a drying tube is often used, it is usually filled with some sort of desiccant like anhydrous calcium chloride.

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For cannabinoids you will want to rotovap the oil with 200 proof etoh several times, this creates an azetroph with the h20 and drives it off. After 2 or so evaporation cycles your resin should be very dry. After loading your resin into the reactor you can start to ramp up the temp to around 120*c , sparge with dry n2 gas to push any remaining moisture. Make sure your reflux condenser has a drying tube on the top.

If you want to get real fancy you can get a shlenk line.
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The basic premise is you can sweep the glassware with n2, and vacuum. this allows you to operate in an air free environment

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for distilling solvents an air free distillation head is a must, you can distill the solvents over mol seives in the boiling flask. you can withdraw solvent either though the bottom output valve, or through a septa on the top side valve with a capillary needle.
Welcome to Adobe GoLive 5 read about drying solvents here.

pressure equalized addition funnels or powder funnels should be used as well to keep the apparatus closed during additions to the reaction.

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Don’t forget the rubber septas!
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and the nitrogen balloon!
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I would repeat that again for the slow readers.
I didn’t mention sodium for that reason.

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Shlenk for the win, heres a great little read on air sensitive chemistry

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woops meant to reply to the OP

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still a good read! thanks! :nerd_face:

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http://www.pyrobin.com/files/purification%20of%20laboratory%20chemicals%206e%20(elsevier,%202009).pdf

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Tired of placing heat guns on reactor and all the mumbo jumbo to dry my tranferhoses For my closed loop system
So build it all inside and around this bakkery oven
And NO the oven won t be used to heat up when any solvent is in

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That’s badass @Roguelab

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