Chemistry Forum

Hello, i am absolute rookie in chemistry, i barely managed to mix gunpowder and sugar rocket fuel and i got list of "want-to-do" reactions which require methanol.

My attention got caught a lot on destillation. Also because i want my own alcohol hah....

Well i fermented my own, most basic alcohol, bought a hotplate, got a laboratory destillation rig from a friend, ive obtained an aquarium water pump which pushes water through from bowl. Put it all together.... But damnit. My thermometer on top of destillation rig shows still just about 30c.

Thats not acceptable, i am 90% certain my hotplate works correctly, it can heat itself up to 400c and it can really get hot as f. My second laser thermometer fails at measuring hotplate temp because its very reflective, some sort of brushed aluminium plate.

Flask has a flat base, i think thats exactly one i need, when heating to 66c it got heated and i even heated to 96c but still couldnt get internal temp to raise. My thermometer on top of distillation flask still showed at most 30c, even after 3 hours of preheating, while liquid was hot, but still not evaporating. But hotplate was very hot even at 66c, untouchable. I didnt want to overheat it so i could prevent flask cracking, there was a lot of electronics around.

Here are 2 photos:

Setup: https://www.mediafire (dot) com/view/zly6o9bhxftdbqp/IMG_20210623_120532.jpg/file

Result..: https://www.mediafire (dot) com/view/cmkmis44oie3bcs/IMG_20210623_120558.jpg/file

Sorry i couldnt figure out in less than 2min hot to use your [img] syntax.

Thanks for help, i wished i got this done, my friends would be ashamed for me if they saw me struggling with this. I feel dumb

First the flask is too full. I cant see boilingstones. This will explode. What is 94 reading on the plate Fahrenheit or Celcius. Because 94 F = 34 C.

By the way from which country you are from. In some countries manufacturing of Alcohol is forbidden by law. So be aware that you don't do illegal things.

Hello, its celsius on my hotplate... I should got the idea that its too full, thank you, i will try again with 100ml

Maybe you didnt see boiling stones because i didnt even now these exists. Thank you. And dont worry about laws, thats okay here.