Extracting Hexanes from Gasoline/Petrol

Despite the high petrol prices currently, it remains the most accessible and cheap source of hydrocarbons one can find. But how to make it useful? We do a distillation, chemically clean it up to remove unwanted products, then distil again to extract out some alkanes, a useful inert solvent that for some reason I store in a jar.
Music: Aphex Twin AFX - 34 ibiza spliff

[@Malephex]

"... I've clamped it ... well" (whole setup held in place by a big rock)

[@mfree80286]

I'm absolutely dying here, because the video kicked off with a minute long ad for Dupont Nomex flame-resistant suits...

[@garethbaus5471]

I wish my advertisements were this relevant.

[@miles11we]

I get ads for new cars and other shit I won't buy A DuPont fire suit on the other hand? It wouldn't take much convincing

[@hoppityhares2597]

This is fantastic to watch after trying some of those "cannaboids" you weren't pronouncing right in this video

[@harryw.174]

Inject the canaboids

[@bakavasa]

Better eat them. The paranoia lasts longer.

[@kakashi766]

@@bakavasa edibles haven't done anything to me except once, I got tired and passed out with like 7 cats laying on me.

[@barretprivateer8768]

They're definitely helpful to help me stop thinking about engineering school and finances and rewiring my amplifier and adjustments I should make to the deluxe version of the guitar pedal I'm selling and the general existential dread while I'm trying to focus on chemistry for 15 minutes

[@realblakrawb]

The cbd will melt your face off

[@RangerOfTheOrder]

"You can tell how much I do drugs because I can't pronounce them" That puts you in one of two extremes

[@miles11we]

"I can't even pronounce canaboids correctly" good cover my dude. I think they bought it

[@MichaelClark-uw7ex]

I don't know, it sounded a bit forced, like he was trying too hard.

[@moneyman295]

"Chilly 33 degree day" as an American: "oh thats cold" *remembers metric syatem* "oh Australian sarcasm"

[@MFKR696]

lol 33 deg. C in Canada is like the hottest day in hell for some of us. Last summer, it got up to 45 and people were losing their shit. That's damn near arid-desert temperatures for a country like Canuckistan.

[@quizarorobzaqu8558]

@@MFKR696 awsome ave refrances

[@turbowolf302]

91.4 degrees F [STARES IN TEXAN] But we all know that's actually chilly for our upside-down friends.

[@MFKR696]

@@turbowolf302 91 deg. F is a mild day in any country, not just Oz. It amounts to roughly 32 deg. C, which is quite comfortable weather no matter how you shake it (20 deg. C is considered "room temperature".) Once it starts getting over 40 deg. C, that's when it starts getting hot. These are Canadian standards btw. I have to imagine an Aussie would read that and just say "Bitch, please... That's Winter weather", to which Canadians would just reply "Hold my beer..." lol If you live in Texas and think 91 deg. F is hot, you really must not get out much lol. Either that or you're a wuss lol.

[@someguy53299]

How about some good ole tennessee weather. 91f with 70% humidity sucks no matter who you are.

[@xvrrecords]

at 2:45 when he pointed out the butane fumes my instinctive reaction was to think “ooh put a lighter up to it” and that’s why I wouldn’t have made a good chemist.

[@onesaltyboi6575]

That’s exactly why you would make a good one

[@G006er]

Thought the exact same thing lol

[@thomastruant8837]

A good chemist has that thought a great chemist has the restraint not to act on it

[@__lasevix_]

I mean, why waste it?

[@mywither7878]

What makes me a good demoman?

[@orion8981]

*casually references drug manufacture* *immediately deflects* 10/10. Let's light it on fire.

[@Iowahurler82]

Can confirm that hexane is used for soybean oil extraction. It is flammable enough that one is not allowed to use steel tools inside the fence, let alone the building. I have had the privilege to have to do some welding inside one of these buildings to facilitate changing a 28,000-pound gearbox with eight 55 gallon drums of oil. The entire building had to be steam purged.

[@TheExplosiveGuy]

Oooff. That sounds sketchy. How did they do the steam purge? Sounds like a lot of volume would be needed to clear a building. Was the steam used as a thermal gradient to move the air?

[@travismiller5548]

If these hippies only knew how hard you work to help them with these soy burgers.

[@Iowahurler82]

@@travismiller5548 perhaps you should try a little maturing before insulting an entire group of people. Besides, you would probably be surprised how much stuff you consume has soy bean material in it.

[@Iowahurler82]

@@TheExplosiveGuy honestly, not 100% sure of the physics behind how it works. I would venture to guess that it has to do with a combination of the heat, hexane is likely water soluble, etc. But they do it at least every quarter for shit downs. This was just an emergency breakdown.

[@travismiller5548]

@@Iowahurler82 I sincerely doubt an entire group of people was insulted by a joke. I'm a vegetarian, relax. the physics really aren't difficult- the hexane flashes off and evaporates at about 160. the steam dispensed at 215 helps that. I think the industry is awesome. As an architect I've helped designed building and equipment installations for ADM soybean processing plants.

[@XMA92]

Also Hexane is neurotoxic which is why it is gradually replaced by heptane as much as possible. Stay safe!

[@kimmy_future4265]

I'm not a chemist by any means but I love watching this stuff and you're really great at explaining it simply. thanks!

[@spiderdude2099]

Pro tip: dip a Pasteur pipette (or any very thin glass tube, like a capillary tube for example) into a permanganate reaction and you’ll easily be able to detect a purple color or not. You don’t even need to drop it into water.

[@24680kong]

Canabananabanoids?

[@sockmon1]

I don't make drugs

[@transkryption]

@@sockmon1 what about bananas?

[@timrb]

What about cabana? cocacabana?

[@greengreen110]

@@sockmon1 i do, and i also sell them, want some? disclaimer: this is a joke, i'm not a drug dealer

[@homesynthesis]

@@greengreen110 for legal reasons this is a joke

[@littlemissmisses2981]

I’ve just found your channels and I think you’ve cured my depression. I will continue running thorough tests though

[@bradgirod3292]

We have a type of pine here in Northern California that produces large amounts of heptane. It was once used as part of engine knock testing.

[@htomerif]

You can get potassium permanganate on amazon under the "pot perm" brand. You can get it in just silly huge amounts for about $10/lb? Also, this might be stupid, but couldn't you just chlorinate all the alkenes? even a single chlorination tends to raise their boiling point way over 100C.

[@pietrotettamanti7239]

There's a risk of chlorinating the alkanes too. I know that it takes harsher reaction conditions but I mean, it's not like radical chlorinations of alkanes are an everyday reaction in OChem lab, so noone has a sufficient level of expertise to tell us how much does chlorine discriminate. Plus handling chlorine is nasty and permanganate gets rid of the toluene and alkyl aromatics, and even with alcohols and alkenes it does so in a much more thorough way. If I have learned anything from my fucking useless lessons of industrial chemistry is that distillation universally sucks dick as a separation technique, even when separating compounds with a 100°C difference in boiling points. Chemically extracting carboxylates from hexanes with water is so much better, the separation is pretty much 100%.

[@htomerif]

@@pietrotettamanti7239 I can agree with that. Whenever you read a paper or patent or have a class that says *for sure* you will definitely get X, Y and Z out of a reaction, especially with chlorine you're actually on your own and you're going to get a good amount of "who knows what this is but I bet its toxic" out of the reaction. I've done the same chlorination the same way 3 times with 3 different results: black tar that seemed immune to any level of heat I wanted to give it, orange foam that filled the whole distillation apparatus and solidified, and a white solid that gave off a green-yellow gas (probably chlorine dioxide) that exploded every 20 minutes or so. None of these things were what was supposed o happen, which was white sludge distilling a clear condensate.

[@erilgaz]

@@htomerif Your comment is simply comedy gold!

[@windigo000]

you got me at food-grade benzene :D

[@jensjensen9035]

The forbidden fruit

[@johnblacksuperchemist2556]

GREAT VIDEO........You really surprised me using the permanganate to get rid of/oxidize stuff in there. I would have never thought of that.........Another way to get mixed hexanes is from electronics cleaner. Usually the only other thing in it is EtOH which is easily extracted out with water and a sep funnel AND the propellant which is a gas. So it is super easy to extract and purify. Well purify to mixed hexanes

[@Gaark]

Loved the slow shots of the mix bar and the droplet in the solvent

[@joela.4058]

All labs (industrial) I’ve work at use methylene chloride for extractions (cheap, aggressive solvent) and hexane when methylene chloride isn’t appropriate

[@Mutantcy1992]

If you didn't mind losing the hexane, you could have added ethanol to form the ethanol-benzene azeotrope which boils at about the same temp as hexane, so you'd remove all of that but leave the heptane which boils at 98

[@vmi3_]

It was so cool to see the KMnO4 oxidation just as I am learning about this in orgo chem!

[@markiangooley]

I was born and raised in Decatur, Illinois. Corn and soybean oil are extracted using a mixture of hexanes, and at least when I was a boy (1961 to arguably 1980), most of the time the process ensured that at any given time there was enough hexane vapor to flatten the town (70,000 to 90,000 inhabitants depending on the year) should it be ignited. Maybe that’s still true. Once there was a real risk of a tank car explosion in the nearby railyard that might well have triggered that…

[@WFly101]

Did you shapeshift into a girl in 1981?

[@mistere304]

I know what you mean because down here we got grain silos and they used to load and unload the cars and those things can flatten entire towns too but they're always smack dab in the middle of the town for some strange reason. They've flattened a few! One super impressive explosion involved 800 tons of a lab chemical and it was an amazing explosion.

[@jsmdnq]

Seems risky to me. If I extract my THC using extracted hexane from gas I'd imagine I'd be poisoning who ever were to use the end product.

[@jamez6398]

"I can't think of a good way to remove the benzene." Hydrogen and Raney nickel?

[@AllChemystery]

this is something i once considered doing but i cant stand the smell of fuel as it is let alone distilling it. The price of fuel now is at $1.56/l (where i am) plus considering the effort and energy used to separate the fractions, it would probably be cheaper still to just buy hexane-if you can find it that is.i think that S.A has some of the highest fuel prices in the country right now. its a shame about Kenicals too. They had a great selection of chems at reasonable prices. i wonder what ever happened to them. their eBay store was convenient.

[@ExtractionsAndIre]

AllChemystery I do wonder what happened to Kenicals. They changed their name to AusChems or something similar, then just disappeared. Wonder what happened to all the permanganate they would've had in stock Fuel prices are too high. But still, you're looking at alkane fractions for less than $15/L which is probably cheaper as you could buy it from any Chem supplier, but that's without considering the cost of the effort you have to put in for the purification. I like the smell of petrol haha, it's a worry. Downward spiral for sure

[@AllChemystery]

Extractions&Ire auschems are a great source of chemicals. I use them often. They sell a wide range including Na/KClO3/4. 35$Kg is ok.

[@ExplosionsAndFire]

i'm getting the names confused then. Or maybe they just rebranded? Probably I'm just getting confused

[@johanfriedel3458]

The phrase you were looking for when you said enolise was probably “ketone-enol tautomerization”

[@triciawhitman4890]

I do hexane extraction on my weed. You don't keep all the aromatics but its very cheap compared to butane. You can recapture your solvent with a simple distill.

[@garycard1456]

Educational 'amateur' chemistry channels are taken down, yet channels who do videos on stupid, pointless and/or downright dangerous 'experiments' like boiling down milk and cola, cutting through everyday objects with red hot knives, or pouring molten salt or molten aluminum onto butter/engine oil/sunflower oil/sugary candies 'to see what will happen' are still going strong!

[@zubmit700]

Can't wait for the plant extraction.

[@ShotIntoOblivion]

hexane also can be used in extracting coke and dmt alkioids which in extracting canabinoids you can just use dry ice or freezer cooled ethanol. id highly recommend you don't use hexane for cannabis products what so ever.

[@BlakeScott-e3y]

This was a great watch. However, I am grateful for Sigma-Aldrich on this.

[@LolS0lar]

My god you store stuff in Dolmio jars as well?! I thought I was the only one LMAO

[@ThunderChunky101]

Butane for THC extraction, and if you're vaping it, CO2. In the industry, Heptane for most other things, but it's not very good for some things, in which case use hexane. There are of course a great many exceptions.

[@Bloated_Tony_Danza]

How many fractions could you get from this if you raised the temperature very slowly? It would be cool to put all the fractions in individual bottles and characterize them by overall volumes, boiling points, etc you could even rank them by how they smell? I have about 100ml of light sweet crude oil and I’ve always been fascinated at how they can make something as complicated as gasoline AND make it cheaper than milk. I’d do this myself but my neighbors would call the cops if they saw me playing scientist...

[@samuelforsyth6374]

your video's are extremely helpful in learning chemistry , making it fun and casual .. legend..

[@andrewrogers9236]

Heptane/Hexane can also be used as the non polar solvent when extracting DMT, but most people, myself included, use naphtha as it's way easier to get

[@KrogOfTurtlePeople]

don't lie

[@stanwashighski3553]

Never knew the effort to get food grade solvent, I understand the pricing now. Do we think jerry rigger is using top dollar stuff or is he turning the biggest profit. Now that I see the harm in not being able to grow your own and do your own processing I see a very real problem.

[@RaExpIn]

I already had planned to do an oxidation with permanganate next weeked. :D You've got some nice petroleum ether in the end. Nice video!

[@ExplosionsAndFire]

thanks man! Such a versatile chemical, and its nice when you don't have to worry about over oxidising anything!

[@elnombre91]

30-60 pet ether is invaluable in any synthetic lab. It's just a pain that the commercial stuff is normally full of grease unless you want to distill it.

[@tonyz79]

The track is from Aphex Twin right? Anyone know the title of the song? Can’t find anything for it but I think I like it!

[@bronzecomeshome9517]

I came here for the Permanganate shortage lore, was not disappointed

[@SomnolentFudge]

to separate the benzene etc... could you sulfonate with strong sulfuric acid to raise the boiling point or form a salt?

[@pietrotettamanti7239]

That should be a good idea as far as I can tell. The alkanes shouldn't react at all with H2SO4, the only problem I see is that sulfonations are not super duper keen on going to completion, specially with normal sulfuric acid. But it would definitely help. I'd recommend sodium hydroxide extraction, as sulfonic acids tend to decompose when heated. Industrially they use selective solvent extraction to separate the aromatics from the light and heavy petrol fractions, but I don't think that's doable here.

[@boogersculptor]

common solvent for thc extraction is actually butane, industrially as well. adding propane gets better yields tho. also co2 and o2 extractions are common industrially. (cannabinoids are legal in canada, recently added delta-8-thc to the menu as well [delta-9-thc is the common one]) even terpenes are being added to some of the products.

[@sylviaelse5086]

I can't quite decide whether using Dolmio jars to store solvents counts as product placement or not.

[@nicholastravisano3439]

You can pronounce every other chemical name other that CANNABINOIDS 😳😂

[@kalvincochran9505]

“Oh me oh my I wouldn’t know anything about those canubanuds or THC marijuanas. Oh wow, I can’t even say it right! Seeee seee!” very convincing 10/10 0:48

[@RockeyDAproductions]

I want to know how flammable all the parts are

[@maxdoner4528]

Nice vid mate

[@puffinondasticky]

my first chemistry experience was a personal extraction of dmt lmao this shit looks fun

[@bababooey7015]

Fun fact... Dawn dish detergent works to remove any MnO2 stains or scales. Just put in a vigorous amount, fill the rest of your container with water and let it sit until it flakes off. After that thete is a minimal amount of work to clean the rest out

[@ExtractionsAndIre]

Rielly Castle thanks for the tip!!

[@gdragon2000]

jwh-018/073 are the synthetic canabanoids made with hexanes

[@RohrAtom]

I like these Kanaboids

[@lukepope7155]

Why does half of his equipment look like bongs from Encore glass?

[@franglish9265]

Also, would larger alkaloids like Mitragynine be better extracted by hexane, or just ethanols, acetones, supercritical CO2 and chlorinated methanes?

[@joetuktyyuktuk8635]

Just be aware of benzene, he himself said he didn't have a good way to remove it, even in small concentrations it is quite toxic, especially in an extraction type use... as you would potentially be concentrating it in the end product. 🙂

[@Puffie40]

Fun fact: if you run this distillation to about 100 degrees, you have the hydrocarbon composition of camping gas, also known as naphtha or white gas.

[@tmfan3888]

thx for trying out my suggestion! lov u~

[@ExtractionsAndIre]

TM Fan thanks for suggesting it fammmm

[@gusbailey68]

Really enjoyed this one. Going to search/wait for the ascaridole extraction.

[@rubywest5166]

Cannabanananoids?

[@timitoshiba2702]

EXCELENT DEAR GENIUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@abs0lute-zer061]

Why the long glass neck in the distillation section? is it because of the vapor pressure of the petrol?

[@zechsblack5891]

It provides for a higher rate of condensation in the hot side which makes the fractions harder to come over and easier to control.

[@coryswanson2247]

Say it with me, What do we do when we see a hole? We make it bigger

[@edgeeffect]

Fabulous distilation slo-mo!!!!

[@the_hamrat]

Did you ever analyse the purity of the solvents you collected? A GC FID with a 1701/624 column would work perfectly

[@knottreel]

Magic word of the day, "tripod."

[@gefulltetaubenbrust2788]

5:50 Ah yes, the carboxyl group CHO

[@juliusraben3526]

Him: Chilly 30 degrees today Me: ........ he is talking fahrenheit, roight?

[@kjpmi]

Great video 👍🏼

[@A_Casual_NPC]

I was really excited for a new video, but then I realised this video wad three years old. Then I got excited again cuz it was a video I hadn't seen before (somehow)

[@JBothell_KF0IVQ]

Can hexanes and heptanes be synthesized rather than distilled?

[@arya6085]

Probably but I don't think it would be very easy

[@jonross377]

Have you found any brand of stirbar that doesnt lose its magnetism below 250c? Every time I buy them I spend a couple more dollars to try to get better ones and its always the same. Overheat the dang things one time and they are trash... Feel like I would be better off with a handful of paperclips.

[@proculation]

They can be re-magnetized quite easily with a simple coil and good discharge of a few amps from charged capacitors.

[@mckfc7193]

Why didn't you do the permanganate oxidation before you distilled the petrol?

[@pixelninja5766]

is getting pure c8h18 octane (Straight chained possible? apparently it has odor of gasoline (obviosuly lol)(

[@ksp6091]

You know what ? In france, you can find bottles of "Essence C" In *ALL* stores and that thing contain only hexane and heptane so get them is pretty easy here...

[@darianballard2074]

Nice work :)

[@techobsessed1]

Cabanabois?

[@captainotto]

Just in case you still deal with the plague of manganese dioxide staining your glassware. It cleans up super easy with a dilute solution of h2o2 and apple cider vinegar.

[@inzilbethx4501]

I like using butane for extracting them cannaboids.

[@GURMEETSINGH-ke1xc]

If you have dry methanol. Since benzene miscible with methanol but hexanes are not.

[@danielaustin7643]

hexane is not a very good solvent for most organics, its too low polarity. i have never used it as an extraction solvent but only for columns (mixed with other more polar solvents solvent like DCM or ethyl acetat)and trituation of solids. we use petrolium ether in our lab which is just a fraaction that boils between specified temparatures (like 40 - 60C is common) it is cheaper than hexane

[@hackzgamezyt]

Why u got 2 channels? The other one is explosions n fire

[@langa77777]

“How much drugs I do”. Judging by that sentence, quite a bit and yet not enough.

[@Alex.The.Lionnnnn]

For someone who is a clown you're super safe with your chemistry. I need to stop saying "ohhhh yeaahhh she'll be right" 😂

[@ChimpFromSpace]

Are there such a thing as septanes?

[@iNerdier]

Heptanes are the same thing, it’s just how you spell the Greek for seven with Latin characters. Επτά (epta/hepta/septa).

[@cranebeg]

Can the system be completely closed/sealed? You show the butane gas escaping from a side arm of the equipment and I know heptane evaporates very quickly so how do you avoid loss of collection? Thanks.

[@Anonymous-ed8om]

How about isocyanates

[@crackedemerald4930]

If a chemist did drugs would they stop existing altogther?

[@transkryption]

I did hear stories about old chemists @ UWA that were banned from certain laboratories because they'd been caught one-too-many times on LSD.

[@Chevsilverado]

@@transkryption Knew/heard of many people who financed their chem degree by making LSD in their basement.

[@staceysmith-gd3zv]

Windy is good since its so flammable

[@tmfan3888]

did you save the broken stir bars and break them apart to see if the magnets are Nd type?

[@patrickw9520]

Have noticed octane being used as a solvent in many products, in lieu of heptane or hexane

[@johnblacksuperchemist2556]

EXCELLENT VIDEO.....How does he think this stuff up

[@chemistryscuriosities]

Did you make the background music Tom?

[@tuff_lover]

ITS APHEX TWIN

[@GLITCH_-.-]

How do you stand wearing those gloves all the time? I have some, but they are so restrictive. Your skin can't breath. It's getting sweaty. They just don't come off again... Do you use talcum powder beforehand?

[@ExtractionsAndIre]

̷ ̴ ̸ɢ̸ʟ̶ɪ̸ᴛ̶ᴄ̶ʜ̷ ̶ ̶ I just churn through them. I made a safety decision that I should just not think about the cost of gloves ever. If they're on long enough to be uncomfortable and sweaty, they've been on too long and I should swap them out.

[@garrysekelli6776]

is there any diffenence between C pentane and L pentane?

[@elvinkasumovic3296]

Hello sir I have question. What is best way to extract fuel's from crude oil ore used lubricant oil? Im experimenting lot with my car with diferent fuel types. And what I want to do is to build exaust recirculatior destiler and chilers . I wuld like to know from what are my liqueds made of because they are hightly toxic basicaly my car has tendency to use evry thing from fuel lubricating oil brake fluid hidraulic fluids and anty freze . So for some reason Im suspecting brake fluid to bound with calcium and chlorine . My car has tendency to dizel what propertys I realy like. So is there any way to use curent as in cells ore heaters to vaporise only centrain fuel types tought my exaust system? Im looking for moisture absorber liqueds under high wacum. And are any octane increasing liqueds in side the engine? I wuld like to know how to make own octane boster what culd we use instead of lead? I wuld like to make own fuel and use safer gases for my engine what wuld you sugest to use? What fuel is most burnabel clean burning with less emision gases ? I need only 2 gases for low and high speed on my carburetor other gases I wuld like to get ride of them. Thats what I curently working on. Basicaly any thing that burns I can use in my engine no mather what it is I know how to ajust it but I need to know what fuel types is best clean burning propertis and how to destil it back with liqued seperators. Culd you show any thing related to that sir?

[@n111254789]

I had a stroke reading this. Don't put liquids in your car that it doesn't specifically take if you can't spell liquid.

[@n111254789]

I'd highly recommend using gasoline in gas powered vehicles though and diesel fuel in diesel powered vehicles and occasionally some e85 in flex fuel vehicles and if you really need high compression methanol or vp110

[@yooperassassin5551]

Dam they hav gasoline in Australia

[@joshua22267]

You dont need hexane to extract thc. I can get bubble bags which use water as the solvent. I can use ethanol, methanol (not ideal, but used before), butane, oils, butter, etc. Pretty much any alcohol or fat you can find will extract thc.

[@swankshire6939]

Your comment is a year old but I'm triggered. In bubble hash water is not a solvent. It's not dissolving anything it's just to carry away the trichromes you break off during a wash.

[@jamesparslow4939]

You know it’s illegal to keep Australia post boxes Nd shit, you ruthless lad

[@sylvanenergy]

did ya sticket your widget yet old boy?

[@blackirish781]

The refraction index of the product is nifty