quick question...
antifoam solutions are used to minimise foaming in many industrial applications like water purification processes and large bioreactors etc
Is there any obvious problems associated with adding some to a solution that will be steam distilled; where foaming from the basic NaOH environment can be troublesome sometimes.
It is guessed the main problem is if the antifoam agent was steam volatile or caused side reactions. Any thoughts or comments...
I beelieve it was LUGH? that had a post about this around a year ago. Maybe WizardX! Since the UTFSE® is tempoRAREily disabled, I'll try an alternate but painstaking way of searching for it!
Maybee he'll chime in before I dig it UP or someone else has the answer.
While I'm searching...the thread, according to my best recollection detailed the advantages of using
NON-VOLATILEanti-foaming agents during distillation processes.
It may have been dealing with essential oil extraction but don't quote me. I just remember seeing it here ;)
It was over my head so I don't recall much more than that...
One such non-volatile AFA is Anti-foam B:
•Hydrogenated tallow glycerides
•Synonyms/Common Names: Silicon Emulsion
Section X - Stability and Reactivity •Stability: Stable Hazardous Polymerization: Will not occur
•Conditions to Avoid: N/A Materials to Avoid: Oxidizing material can cause a reaction.
•Hazardous Decomposition Products: Silicon dioxide, carbon dioxide, and Traces of incompletely burned carbon products, and formaldehyde.
Antifoam B Emulsion (http://hillbrothers.com/msds/abe.htm)
(http://hillbrothers.com/msds/abe.htm)
Your question will be hard to impossible to answer as long you dont tell WHAT you want to steamdistill and WHAT anti-foaming agent you thought to use.
What about corn-oil?