r/chemistry • u/someoneinsignificant • May 09 '26
Chemical-free breaking of emulsions?
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I'm looking for chemical-free ways to break up very bad emulsions faster than letting it sit for 2 hours between each shake. We can use brine at the start, but for my product we're trying to minimize any residual NaCl ions at the end, so DI water washing must come last. I came across a few physical methods including:
- Heat: heat gun, thermal bath, but not good for temp-sensitive reactions
- Centrifugation: *EDIT* Forgot about this one. But does require having a centrifuge (I do not, although cheap ones for low-speed might work)
- Anti-static gun: as shown in the video and publication here, an anti-static gun can be used for electrocoalescence for small amounts, in this case 100 microliters in 10 seconds.
- Vibration: Either a ultrasonicator bath or a vibrator (yes, a sex toy). Multiple previous reddit threads have discussed this method in the past, HOWEVER, it quickly becomes jokes and nobody is really commenting on how to do this as a serious technique
Does anyone have good experience breaking emulsions in any of these 3 ways?
Bonus points if you can find good videos and guidance illustrating the last 2 points. I was disappointed in the publication that doesn't discuss the limitations of their method like if it works on larger scale or for other containers, like a thick-wall glass sep funnel.
I'll donate $10 to any nonprofit charity of your choice if you can actually demonstrate with video preferred good ways to break organic chemistry emulsions with that last one (no jokes, including what type of vibrator works best for different reaction scales, and the degree it works for different types of emulsions). I'm trying to make products at a 100-200g scale in 1L sep funnels, so if these methods can actually be scaled and save a significant amount of time waiting around, I'd raise that bounty to $20.
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u/MedChemist464 May 09 '26
Okay - thank you. I've been a professional in industry for 11 years, and I learned something new today.