Thanks Yahia, peracetic acid is a hydroperoxide- the main issue isnt whether I can dry it, but is it safe to dry it- peroxides can be unstable in their anhydrous form. I am also concerned about the molecular sieve catalyzing the decomposition back to acetic acid and oxygen.

thanks

Eric

Dear Eric Hall,

Some brief information in EROS is present. link: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/047084289X.rp034.pub3/abstract

citations from abstract of article:

1. (a) Swern, D. Organic Peroxides; Wiley: New York, 1971; Vol. II, pp 355-533. (b) Plesnicar, B. Organic Chemistry;

Academic: New York, 1978; Vol. 5C, pp 211-294.

2. Vogel, E.; Klug, W.; Breuer, A. OS 1976, 55, 86.

3. Cooper, M. S.; Heaney, H.; Newbold, A. J.; Sanderson, W. R. SL 1990, 533.

4. Pandell, A. J. JOC 1983, 48, 3908.

5. Hazards in the Chemical Laboratory; Luxon, S. G., Ed.; Royal Society of Chemistry: Cambridge, 1992.

And an article about drying of tBuOOH can help.

Article Die Trocknung vontert-Butylhydroperoxid nach einem einfachen...

Thank you, I'll see if I can track down that last paper.

Eric

for those of you that have read this topic, I have run several trials with 3 angstrom molecular sieves and a commercial 32% peracetic acid solution. The sieves do remove the water, as evidenced by a very clean BV oxidation reaction, however, the procedure also leads to 50% or more loss of peroxide activity, and degradation of the molecular sieves, presumably by the acidic nature of the solution. The ratio of mol sieves to per acetic acid solution was about 1:2, which was roughly the amount required to strip the approximately 10% water from the solution. The process generates quite a bit of gas as well, which may be the residual hydrogen peroxide decomposing on the slightly basic sieves.