OT: Chemistry Question

Solid-to-liquid point of lowest melting: eutectic Liquid-to-gas point of lowest boiling: azotrope

So for example, ethanol in water reduces the boiling point. You can boil ethanol out of water, but coming from the water direction, you can't boil ethanol away from its water. Somewhere around 98% (196 proof).

Tim

Yes, and I was using "eutectic" in quotes, as it is always applied to solids. But some of the principles are similar. Chemists concern themselves almost always with "solutions," where the solvent is in large excess. When you get to 80% sugar (by volume) and 20% water, then IMO you are in the play pen of 'material scientists,' with their phase diagrams and eutectics. There is quite a bit of overlap, as the principles of statistical mechanics apply equally. What goes on with >> sugar and

Thank you for spelling out my "right idea" in more detail.

Yes, a bit pompous. :) I'm a biochemical thermodynamicist, and the detailed description of water effects is 99% of the game. Water is highly ordered, so the strong effects at micro-scale are mostly entropic. At macro-scale, the phenom is known as the hydrophobic effect. It's a known effect among many at the macro level, but it rules at the micro level. Here are just a few areas it is the ruling paradigm:

-protein structure

-virus attack

-hormone-receptor recognition

-antibody binding

-DNA processes

-neuron synapse

The last, the synapse, is arguably a diffusive channel effect primarily - the fact that the Calcium channel is within quantum mechanical dimensions has prompted some physicists to think that this is the missing link between the QM description of nature and our consciousness. In other words, Newtonian reductionism has foisted off on us a mass neurosis which stems from the conditioned belief that we are lumps of matter disconnected from the universe as a whole. This is an overall belief shattered by QM.

It's an attractive meta-paradigm, but when we put on hard hats and get things done, it's a Newtonian, ho-hum world. Or is it? jb

Looks like my plan has been foiled (more or less). My 0-32 BRIX meter doesn't read refractive indicies nearly far enough out to use for my alternate solute. I'll need a sucrose refractometer that goes out to nearly

I'll have to see if I can get a refractometer that reads refractive index directly instead of % sucrose. At least that will be one less variable I'll have to mess with. So much for re-purposing cheap winemaking equipment.

Dilute your unknown 2:1 (or more) and measure the concentration of the new sample. Then work backwards.

That is what I said. But apparently there is something that we do not understand.

Dan

and

boil

boil

Thank you for the clarification.

?-)

solids.

almost

get

of

apply

sugars can,

knee

That could well be part of it, but i don't think (guess) it is the whole explanation. Honey and honey crystallization is an avenue to consider as part of this. I think the "knee" is due to a change in the physics of "being a solution" versus being a "plastic / glassy (flowable) solid".

Perhaps a search on rheometry of sugar solutions? IIRC rheometry is a specific measurement related to viscosity.

Over my head.

?-)

Hi Paul, I'm a bit late to the discussion. I'm not sure how your gizmo works. (A link or someting to what it looks like would help.)

But I'm wondering if the *knee* occurs somewhere near the point where the index of refraction of the solution is equal to that of the glass prism? (or am I way out in left field?)

George H.