I sort of feel bad about raining on the parade of the person distilling isopropanol in his garage earlier, but it really is dangerous.
But most of us chemists also need to be reminded of it. To the point that someone had to write a paper whose entire point is “don’t distill isopropanol”.
Please, don’t do this thing.
The issue with isopropanol peroxide formation is that exposing it to air – even when just using it, like when you’re cleaning parts – starts the process. The air in the head space of your containers is also enough to form them over time. You don’t necessarily need to see solids in the containers for it to be dangerous, since they’ll crystallize out as you concentrate the solution during distillation.
It’s also a numbers game. It probably won’t explode the first time you do it. But there’s a chance each time. Do it enough, and you’ll have an incident.
There are chemical reductants that can clear peroxides. For industrial scale isopropanol distillation, I’m not sure what they use. It may be that they just never distill down to the point that peroxides concentrate to a dangerous level.
No no no no no.
I’m a chemist. Organic chemistry PhD, now a process chemist in the industry. I do this for a living. Do not distill isopropanol that’s been exposed to air for any meaningful length of time.
Isopropanol slowly reacts with oxygen in the air to generate peroxides that, when you concentrate them down, EXPLODE. Source. Sorry, not an open access journal. But please take my word for it.
Unless you have a way of confirming the peroxide levels in your isopropanol are near zero, do not concentrate it down by distillation. You’ll blow up your glassware, which will probably expose what you’re distilling to your heat source, which will generate a secondary fireball.
PLEASE do not do this.
Shit guys, the tone police are here! Scatter!
Billionaire evil is a sliding scale from normal rich guy evil to comic book villain evil. He’s less bad than his peers, even if the stuff he does (like the cost plus drugs thing) are maybe just for PR.
We eat him later than others. But we do eat him.
I also genuinely do not understand the appeal. But I also don’t understand the appeal of reaction videos on YouTube or network cop dramas, and they are also profoundly popular with stupid people.
I feel bad for laughing at this
I’m in the middle of a TNG rewatch. This is my next episode. Every time I look at the thumbnail, I just can’t. Even though Best of Both Worlds is so soon after.
My spoiler-free review: oh no
o7