Stirring the pot...

[rezaxis]

I like a good debate as much as the next guy, but underlying all debates is a problem that needs to be solved. And I like solutions.

The biggest debate on this forum that I've seen in my short time haunting this place is the plastics issue.

There I wuz mentally masturbating myself, and I cum up with an experiment. I can't do the experiment because I don't have the equipment and other resources, but I would guess there may be a few here who could/would. I would like to convince them to try the following and post their results.

1. Take 1 part of neutral spirit or anhydrous ethyl alcohol and mix it with 4 parts of well boiled deionized water giving a 20% concentration of alcohol, making a simulated wash that is essentially water and ethyl alcohol.

2. Profile the simulated wash with a gas chromatograph.

2. Strip it collecting everything, though a well used but very clean still with no plastic parts, or a distillation assembly made entirely of glass.

4. Put the simulated wash back together.

2. Profile the reconstructed wash with a gas chromatograph.

If it's the same then a good baseline has been created and proving that the still added nothing.
If the still added anything, it would show up in the new profile and could be eliminated from the next part of the experiment.

5. Put a big sample with a lot of surface area of the suspected plastic material (PTFE) in the vapor path at the highest point in the still.

6. Re-strip the reconstructed wash.

7. Put the simulated wash back together.

8. Profile the reconstructed wash with a gas chromatograph again.

If the plastic did or did not add anything compared to the previous profiles you would know it and this debate, at least as it concerns PTFE, could end. Teflon either is a good or a bad thing. The tester would also know if his still is adding anything to his runs.

Yeah, I got too much time on my hands. I'm not a doctor and I haven't even played one on TV.... I bet you thought this post would be about something else.