# Freezing to separate water from alcohol for drying green??



## Abter (Sep 6, 2016)

Numerous posts here say that soaking bowl blanks in denature alcohol is a successful way to dry green wood fairly quickly. General idea when immersed in alcohol for a few hours the water in the blanks is displaced by the alcohol. You then let the alcohol evaporate for a few weeks, leaving a significantly drier blank.

The downside of this alcohol soak method is the cost. HD sells denatured alcohol is ~$16. Totally submerging numerous bowl blanks in alcohol can require a lot of alcohol.

The cost problem gets worse because the alcohol in the bath absorbs the water (thats the point after all) from the wood, so after using it for a few uses the alcohol "wears out" from having too much water in it. It also ends up with other stuff (sorry for the technical terms here) from the wood, so you gradually get worn out and smelly old alcohol.

Has anyone tried cleaning the alcohol to get the water back out of it? I am not interested in distilling the old alcohol, although I am sure some of you are quite familiar with that process 

But another very low tech chem 101 way of de-watering alcohol is by putting it in a freezer. Ethanol (denatured alcohol is 90% + ethanol) freezes at about -170 degrees F. Putting the used mix in your freezer (about 0 F), the water will freeze and rise to the top. You can skim it off and throw it away (errr…dispose of it environmentally properly and safely), leaving "drier" alcohol. A few rounds of this will greatly lower the moisture content.

Questions:
1) Has any one tried this? Any success? Failure?
2) where does the other wood "stuff" end up. I suspect some will be in the frozen stuff, and others remain in the liquid. The issue is how much in each? If you do this, especially a few times, do you end up with an ever nasty mix of alcohol and resin, sap, bug juice, and a bunch of other organic weirdies ?


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## kelvancra (May 4, 2010)

Makes sense. I froze a batch of fresh squeezed cherry juice. Months down the road, I pulled the jug from the freezer and it was all frozen, except for a little over an inch cylinder down the center. That would be the high concentrate, which had an out of this world, wonderful taste. High sugar.


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## ClammyBallz (Apr 16, 2015)

You need a cheaper source for alcohol. I just picked up another 5 gallon jug while using a 25% off coupon. $42.20 shipped to my door.

https://www.zoro.com/sunnyside-denatured-alcohol-5-gal-solvent-834g5/i/G1858696/


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## AlaskaGuy (Jan 29, 2012)

Google is your friend. No I have not tired any of these personally

http://www.wikihow.com/Separate-Alcohol-and-Water


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## wormil (Nov 19, 2011)

The advantage of alcohol is there is almost zero labor. So instead of adding labor to recover alcohol why not just use a slightly more labor intensive method instead, like boiling or a kiln.


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## TravisH (Feb 6, 2013)

Distillation is not feasible for most individuals. I do my fair share at work but don't see it as feasible for most guys to do at their house. You also get into another fun area frowned upon by law enforcement.

Freezing… You will need to get water content up over 70% by weight to get freezing. I routinely use ethanol/water mixtures at temperatures below zero with no issues at work for crystallization work. Most guys experiences freezing alcohol products is with beer and wine products and in both cases we are talking about a lot of water. I know we kept a freezer full of MD 20/20 g at the house in college and you could "freeze concentrate" that crap and pour that horrible junk out for consumption on occasions as usually the freezer never stayed closed long enough to get that cold.

Molecular sieves and various desiccants are frequently used to dry organic solvents but once again not really feasible for most.

I think the effort and materials needed plus ones times are more costly and just would buy the denatured alcohol.


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## pmayer (Jan 3, 2010)

I just bought a 5 gallon bucket for $33 at Menards. Special order; took about 2 weeks to get. I soaked 8 bowls, roughly 20" apiece. https://www.menards.com/main/paint/cleaners-thinners-removers/paint-stain-cleaners/thinners-solvents/sunnyside-reg-denatured-alcohol-thinner-5-gal/p-1444444210602.htm


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## AlaskaGuy (Jan 29, 2012)

> Distillation is not feasible for most individuals.
> 
> - TravisH


I doubt the moonshiners would agree


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## Abter (Sep 6, 2016)

Thanks everybody! TravisH's comment about needing a high % water to freeze ethanol/water blends was something I didn't know (I will blame my Chem 101 level knowledge). AlaskaGuy's link to wikihow was bang on. "Start with a liquid that is 5%-15% alcohol" (freezing method is also called "Mongolian Still). Thinking about it, of course it won't work for low water contents. It if it did the vodka …~80 proof = 40% alcohol… that lives in my freezer (best martini ever…no ice needed) would have separated long ago.

All demonstrating once again …you can get darn near *ANYTHING* answered at LumberJocks


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## lew (Feb 13, 2008)

I'm going to try this method-
http://www.ronkent.com/techniques.php


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