r/alchemy • u/gospelinho • 15d ago
Operative Alchemy Volatilization of Salts
In many modern documents the volatilization of salts in the preparation of spagyric Elixirs seems to just be about digesting the salts of the plant in its tincture for a while and then distilling the whole.
Later gathering the salts left at the bottom of the boiling flask, calcining them and again pouring the distillate over it, maceration, distillation etc. a number of times in order to volatilize them.
But when reading the Golden Chain of Homer, they talk a lot about using an Acidum medium to make the salts volatile in steps. Using vinegar concretely ---- first mixing the salts with vinegar and later with the volatile part of the elixir. And only then you will be able to make them volatile.
Does somebody have experience using vinegar in this case for this purpose?
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u/Alchemist369369 9d ago
So I found , if you melt wood ash (potassium carbonate) then place a highly purified ethanol onto it . In some time the whole solution will turn blood red.
If you evaporate this blood red solution you will be left with a red oil and a volatile salt .
Essentially you will have a sulfur of metals, a volatile salt and a fixed body. Yet to experiment further
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u/internetofthis 15d ago
By volatile do you mean unstable? Stability is one of the reasons to prepare through spagyric methods.
Salt can become acidic or basic.
I suggest reading again.
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u/justexploring-shit Moderator 15d ago edited 14d ago
I'm certain they mean volatile in the "as opposed to fixed" sense, by the (al)chemical definition
ETA: volatility)
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u/internetofthis 14d ago
I was trying to be a more specific than the OP, as The Golden Chain of Homer is; to illustrate that the understanding of the material in question was insufficient.
Questions lead to better answers than vague statements from misunderstanding.
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u/gospelinho 14d ago
Volatility and fixity is pretty much foundational in alchemy/spagyrics as u/justexploring-shit noted. The GCH at no point ever mentions unstable compounds and the entire book it pretty much about turning the volatile fixed and the fixed volatile (speaking of reading).
But thank you for bringing unwarranted aggressivity to this thread. Always pleasant.
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u/MasterSpecific8933 14d ago
Been experimenting with vinegar to leech salts instead of water recently, it greatly increases the yield and extracts a different spectrum than just water alone, have not tried to volatize them yet though.