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Author Topic: Nitromethane distillation  (Read 177 times)

akcom

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Nitromethane distillation
« on: December 29, 2010, 09:34:55 PM »
Anyone here who has tried to distill nitromethane from 20% race fuel knows what a pain in the ass it is.  Most of the nitro is lost in the azeotrope and even then extremely careful temperature control is required.  I am wondering if anyone here has tried first distilling off the methanol as an azeotrope with acetone and then distilling out the nitromethane?

Granted, the solvent volumes are large.  If you wanted 20mL of nitro from 20% racing fuel, you'd need ~800mL acetone, BUT acetone is cheap as shit and it's really not all that time consuming.

Oerlikon

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Re: Nitromethane distillation
« Reply #1 on: December 30, 2010, 12:26:59 AM »
If anyone,I know how hard to get nitromethane can be!
I finally found source abroad after many years and bought one gallon.
But believe me,distilling just isn't worth danger!

If you need it for reductive amination,just calculate amount of RC racing fuel
you need need for complete reaction and if there is too little volume just add
some more MeOH. If volume seems too big,it isn't! Just speed up your addition!
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lugh

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Re: Nitromethane distillation
« Reply #2 on: December 30, 2010, 03:15:49 AM »
You use a little water to separate the methanol from the nitromethane, then distill it  8)
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akcom

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Re: Nitromethane distillation
« Reply #3 on: December 30, 2010, 05:22:07 PM »
I've tried using water to separate the nitro from the methanol but it's not really effective as MeNO2 has a solubility of 10g/100mL in water.  How did you do it lugh?

lugh

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Re: Nitromethane distillation
« Reply #4 on: December 30, 2010, 06:25:01 PM »
If one has 30% nitromethane fuel it's a simple matter to wash the fuel with two volumes of cold water to separate the methanol  ;)  If all you have is 10% nitromethane fuel you could try washing it with DCM, perhaps that might work  8)
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NeilPatrickHarris

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Re: Nitromethane distillation
« Reply #5 on: December 31, 2010, 02:58:01 AM »
yes it really sucks.  i used 30% nitromethane rc fuel and i found that i had to distill a very large amount just to get a very minimal amount in return.  it actually makes more sense financially to cough up the $$$ to order pure nitromethane and pay for the hazmat rather than all the time and money buying gallon after gallon of rc fuel.  in my experience most of it is lost in the azeotrope also.  i used a vigreux and there was very clear, easy separation however it did not add up, the returns didn't match the math.  not that the math adds up to a decent amount either :\

yep rc fuel sucks, you have to distill large volumes eating up hours of your time for very small returns.  buy a gallon of pure nitromethane or make your own MeAm IMHO

Sedit

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Re: Nitromethane distillation
« Reply #6 on: December 31, 2010, 03:05:01 AM »
Nitromethane can be made in ways that nitroethane can not thru means of halogenated acetic acids, perhaps thats worth looking into if distillation is that much of a pain.
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akcom

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Re: Nitromethane distillation
« Reply #7 on: January 01, 2011, 07:27:32 PM »
I appreciate the help DOS, but I think we shy away from posting sources here
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