Do I really NEED heat?

[nightfire]

I would appreciate some help if some one could offer some please.
I was day dreaming about separating an ingredient (alkene) from other ingredients in a mix. Eg., terpenes, (which are also aklkenes too aren't they?), and other essential oil chemicals, but preferably without the use of heat. There is not any way to get any of the lab equipment that I would need to accomplish this using distillation under reduced pressure. I have thought about other ways like heating up to 200c odd degrees in an oven for a while or something like that, but am afraid that this would pretty much destroy the wanted ingredients, as well as the unwanted ones. It is also relatively hard for me to get ANY kind of chemicals or equipment here in Oz, because every one who makes these things, (lab glassware, reagents) are now in with the boys in blue, and won't sell to members of the public. I would basically have to start a full legitimate business to aquire any of this stuff, and I don't have the time or $$$$ to do that. (It's NOT just a case of putting on a nice shirt, printing up some letterheads and calling the companies these days..)
Anywayz, I would love to hear from anyone else who may have conquered this situation, or has any ideas on how. Thanx to all.
B.T.W Have a GREAT Christmas, and a RIPPER New Year!

 

[spice]

Well, you're at a crossroads already. There is no really effective way to purify these alkene oils other than distillation, generally under strong vacuum. There are a few alternatives, but none are as inherently powerful as a distillation kit with ground glass joints and a vacuum pump.

You can try freezing certain alkenes out of essential oils, with varying degrees of success, but it sucks....mercuric acetate forms a coordination complex with safrole(an easily separated yellow solid), but mrercury compounds are toxic, and not recommended for inexperienced explorers. It's a good idea to minimize the mercury generally.

There will be many times in your journey when you'll need to distill....make friends with the entire idea of it, embrace it.

There really is no way to pull this off without distillation capability, and that's not BS.

 

[nightfire]

Thanx Spice, that's what I thought... I did try freezing, but as you can imagine, I got nowhere. I might try to build a vac distillation setup with either a vacuum cleaner where the hose gets smaller as it goes along to give it a bit more guts, or a small air compressor like the ones used to pump up your car tires that plug into the cigarette lighter by taking apart the case and putting a hose over the intake with a bigger plastic hose barb. I have seen this done at instructables.com but am not sure how well it would hold up for what I want. (they were using it for vacuum forming of plastic sheet, and they heat up pretty quickly). As for a vacuum cleaner, I am not sure if they would suck any where near hard enough. (I need something that sux like my chemistry... I tried to build a water powered aspirator, but that was hopeless and didn't work, I think that that was my design rather than anything else though).

As for a distillation setup, I may even try just getting a hold of a piece of glass tube 40 -50 mm x 20mm or so from a glassblower, but there will be no ground glass joints or anything involved, and it would just have a casing made from some see-through pvc hosing, and using a small pond pump as the water supply. (would this be safe enough?) I also thought about using the red rubber stopper type things they use in the top of flasks with a hole drilled into it for the 'condenser' to sit in when needed standing up, and another one of the same with an elbow of some type for a distillation setup. It is the power needed for the vacuum that has got me stuck at the moment though...


As for not needing a still being B.S, You are right on the nail! I have read alot of your posts and have a true respect for you and the other experienced explorers here. You are now, where I aspire to be, and your word is truly gospel.
Thanx!