[Petpeve1234]

      Swim is really into chemistry, and has been reading a lot of online and offline material in an effort to teach myself basic organic chemistry, which is harder than swim thought it was going to be.

     In swim's studies, swim has run across an abbreviation that he is not quite sure as to what it means.
         "... dissolved in 500 ml 20% abs EtOH-EtO2..."
         (From a line about synthesizing HCl salts from the freebase [Monomethylation of Amphetamines, Rhodium, Errowid.org])
     At first swim wrote it off as some kind of short hand of the author, but then he ran into again here,
          "...filtered and the solid was crystallized from abs. ether/ethanol mixture..."
          [Synthesis and Neurotropic Activity of Novel Quinoline Derivatives, Edmunds Lukevics, Latvian Institute of Organic Synthesis, 11/25/1997]

      Swim's initial guess was that abs. was an abbreviation for 'absolute' (aka, pure), however, upon a quick google search, abs is the acronym for Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (the plastic used in Legos). So, here's the real question: Is an abs EtOH/EtO2 solution just Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene dissolved in a mixture of ether and ethanol?

      If so, could swim try to test this by grinding some Legos and then trying to dissolve them in an ether/ethanol solution? Or would the additives prevent the mixture from dissolving?
      Anyways, thanks for any responses, swim is just curious.

[billnotgatez]

http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/ABS

absolute is one of the choices

I assume English is not your primary language

My first guess is they are saying you need pure ethanol in water and no other impurities

[discodermolide]

Bill is correct.
Absolute ethanol is 100% ethanol, no denaturants, no water,
Ether is the same absolute means no water no impurities etc.

[billnotgatez]

I think what confused the original post was the 20% which would be hard to relate to 100% percent pure.
A conflict

I am assuming they use the pure ethanol and mix it with pure water to get the 20%.

assume this is done v/v in this special case but I am not sure.

edit due to error

[DrCMS]

I think what confused the original post was the 20% which would be hard to relate to 100% percent pure.
A conflict

I am assuming they use the pure ethanol and mix it with pure water to get the 20%.

No it is pure ethanol mixed with diethyl ether 20:80.  I'd guess water will mess the whole thing up which is why they specify abs EtOH rather than the usual 96% stuff.  However as the OP seems to be trying to purify drugs and does not know enough chemistry to convince me they have a legitimate reason for doing so I think we should lock this topic now.

[billnotgatez]

Topic locked