Anyone know how i could easily extract acetic (ethanoic) acid from common household vinegar with home made equipment?

I'm bored and i happen to have some pure ethanol so i thought i would have a go at making an ester.

As far as I know white vinegar is a relatively pure solution of acetic acid. I have never had a problem it.

have you used our Search Engine yet?

we have plenty of threads asking this same old question.

 

for brevity, you get your vinigar and add sodium hydroxide (or sodium bicarbonate) until no reaction occurs and it reads neutral, then you crystalise this by evaporation to make sodium acetate, then you add sulphuric acid to this and distill it. the product is Acetic acid conc.

distill it?

well yeah, how else are you going to get a pure sample free of sodium sulphate?

A question: Why can't you just evaporate all the water off vinegar? Will the ethanoic acid decompose or somehting?

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

Acetic acid will not decompose but evaporation rates of water and acid are almost equal. You have to evaporate 90% or even more of liquid to get residue that is remarkably more concentrated than your initial product.

Acetic acid will not decompose but evaporation rates of water and acid are almost equal. You have to evaporate 90% or even more of liquid to get residue that is remarkably more concentrated than your initial product.

 

Right so it will work that way then - great

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones