Phthalic Acid and Fatty Alcohols from Vinyl Gloves: Part 1

The plasticizer in vinyl gloves is extracted and saponified to give phthalic acid and a fatty alcohol.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• phthalic
• acid
• vinyl
• gloves
• plasticizer
• extraction
• isolation
• chemistry
• chem
• DEHP
• amateur

[98JMA]

Could ethanol be used to leach out the DEHP?

[UC235]

@98JMA Sure, but I would expect isopropanol to be a lot cheaper and more readily obtained anhydrous.

[ChemCrazy81]

What kind of oil is in your heating pot? Would vegetable oil or mineral oil work for this purpose?

[UC235]

@ChemCrazy81 I use heavy mineral oil (available as a laxative). Unlike vegetable oil, it can't go rancid.

[Palizasadomicilio]

May be it's better to hydrolize the ester by stirring straight soda in the boiling isopropanol to obtain the unsoluble sodium salt? Then filter and acidify...

Great work!

[UC235]

@Palizasadomicilio That's exactly what happened when I attempted to dry it with NaOH, but still had some of the ester present. The NaOH prills all stuck together and got coated with salts and the solution got very thick and gloppy. Not a very clean separation. The two phases worked nicely, though very slowly. You might switch to KOH as the base since it is more soluble than NaOH in organic solvents, which would make the saponification at least a little faster.

[lexichronicle2]

Thanks for this video!

[Aranwu]

@UC235

Is there other kind of solvent that can leech out the plasticizer from the gloves?

[TakronRust]

@UC235 naw, you did.