Submitted by Adam Johnson / Harvey Mudd College on Thu, 04/18/2013 - 17:00
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Research

I need to remake my base bath and I don't remember how I made it.  It has been a LONG time.  I mean, I could throw KOH and iPrOH together, but does anyone have a recipe? 

Adam

Kyle Grice / DePaul University

When we do it here, we dissolve 1kg KOH in 1L water (caution, gets really hot!), and mix into ca. 20 L iPrOH. We sprinkle in some more KOH at the bottom sometimes too just to reboost it rather than remake it. Lasts a long time if used properly. Of course, then people abuse them so much (like putting really really dirty glassware or metal parts in there, etc) we have to remake it frequently.

Cheers,

Kyle

Thu, 04/18/2013 - 17:20 Permalink
Adam Johnson / Harvey Mudd College

I found a good recipe on the Tolman group website (under the Standard Operating Procedures): http://www.chem.umn.edu/groups/tolman/Group%20Responsibilities.html

I don't think it really matters. I mean, really.  Throw KOH in iPrOH and stir.  But I haven't made a new base bath in so long I just had no idea what it was (and the sharpie pen ink wore off over the intervening years)

Thu, 04/18/2013 - 20:41 Permalink
Cameron Gren / University of North Alabama
Our recipe was always just dump in a 500 mL beaker full of KOH in a bucket, 1/2 full of iPrOH! Stir for a while with a mechanical stirrer and there you go!
Tue, 06/25/2013 - 21:48 Permalink
Brad / University of Indianapolis

In grad school, we saw you'd get separation of the IPA and water if there was too much water in the mix.  Something to watch out for.

Sun, 08/03/2014 - 15:27 Permalink
Adam Johnson / Harvey Mudd College

flo, stay off my forum.

Wed, 07/15/2015 - 21:01 Permalink