The most expensive part of alot of teks nowadays is the D-Limonene. Has anyone come up with a sure fire way to clean it enough to use again? Most people dont have a distilation setup so the obvious answer is out of most peoples grasps.

Is cleaning with HCL then water then drying with magnesioum sulfate enogh?

i was wondering a bit about this, too.
d-limonene is completely insoluble with water, so wouldn't that be enough?
possibly ethanol or ipa

The MgSO4 question is the key here, I think. If you can clean it with volumes of hot water of varying PH, the only concern should be whether you can return it to >95% purity.

Is limo completely insoluble with water? I've had water I've recovered from FASW that smelled of oranges, and limo wont clear up for me once i add water until I raise the temperature on the jar.

I was under the impression it was very slightly water soluble, could be wrong though. I think my friend may break down and get a distillation setup, it would be fun to have anyways Anyone know what temp limo distills at?

Where's Jorkest?

Bet he's got an answer for us.

Pokey the Chemically Inept

d-limonene boils at 176 C, according to wikipedia. You might be able to clean it by repeatedly "extracting" it with acidic water, but I wouldn't hold out too much hope for this. If you've got to re-use the limo i'd try cleaning it - couldn't hurt. Suppose a distillation apparatus could pay for itself in the long run by saving you from having to buy more limo...

Thanks.



Exactly what I was thinking. A $130 investment but many years of fun

SWIM is working on setting up a still anyway, but this may be a simple way to recycle limonene:



If this is done, and a bunch of gunk is left in the bottom of the pot, then it's no longer in the limonene.