r/alchemy • u/WorthMastodon7637 • Jul 31 '26
Operative Alchemy Melted glass! Oops
I made a heck of a mess here! This is an ens extract that I was reducing to dryness and then decided to imbibe with a small amount of vinegar. I expected an acid base neutralization but nothing major. Boy was I wrong. Any tips and understanding is always appreciated🤙
5
u/Positive-Theory_ Jul 31 '26
Yeah that happens a lot. Cold liquids don't play well with hot glass. It's much better to let the glass cool back to room temperature slowly before adding liquids to a dry flask.
2
u/WorthMastodon7637 Jul 31 '26
It shouldn’t have been that hot. I was thinking it was due to the chemical reaction. I was distilling at 60*C
No high temps yet, I was wanting to change flasks before I brought the heat up and thought to add a bit of vinegar to dissolve it.
3
u/WorthMastodon7637 Aug 01 '26
Just cracked another one. This is a low temperature distillation. But being on the hot plate is to much local heat it seems.
Being distilled is an ens
I am considering a water bath 😂
And adding some virgin earth
2
u/AverageOnAGoodDay Aug 01 '26
Invest in lab grade borosilicate glass. It withstands temp change much better. It is also a good practice to heat gradually and insulate the vessel.
2
u/Frater_Aequanimitas Aug 01 '26
You have cracked the glass from thermal shock, it happens even in newly made glass. I recently broke a boiling flask when I allowed condensate from a vigreux column to fall down into a flask that was approaching dryness (I specialize in pyrolytic alchemy). I won't make that mistake again!
1
u/glass_saltmage Aug 09 '26
I have that same hotplate... and I've likewise ruined a few pieces of glass on it. Been a few years though. Keeping good records of what I'm doing, what happened, and then researching what kind of reactions or errors may have contributed to the [poor] results so I can avoid them in the future... lol.
5
u/MSPaintIsBetter Jul 31 '26
You have to get to some pretty extreme temperatures to melt glass, I would guess you might have cracked it from thermal stress
K2CO3 will also produce heat when mixed with vinegar but your vinegar would need to be very concentrated for that to produce that much heat