That really depends on the rotovap and more importantly, on the vacuum source you have available.  My intuition is that a good sealing rotovap with water bath and strong vacuum should be able to remove decanol.

I'm a little surprised that an extraction is not possible.  Are there no distinct chemical characteristics that you can exploit?  A water wash or extract with brine?  Can you remove it preferentially with DCM?  Can you flash freeze it in a dry ice bath?

I'm not sure what reaction you are performing, but I hope I could at least give you some ideas.

Best of luck,

John

As John has mentioned above, it really depends on the vacuum source. A rotovap is essentially a "bigger" distillation setup. Most rotavaps vacuum pump are diaphragm pumps that got to about 5-10 mbar for a good pump. The vacuum oil pump on the other hand goes below 1 mbar..

Other than the methods suggested by John, you could try forming an azeotrope with other solvent, or to switch the normal rotavap pump with a vacuum oil pump to achieve a lower vacuum pressure.

Vacuum stripping is improved if a small amount of inert gas is allowed to sweep through the vapor space and into the vacuum pump.

Hello and thank you everyone for the answers and suggestions. i really appreciate it !

I see, so it might be possible with a better vacuum source! we have a good oil vacuum pump which i can connect to the rotovap. hopefully it will work!

and as for extraction, the compound is amphiphilic, which is not very suitable for extraction, although i have a few solvents in mind and i'm gonna try extraction at some point. but for now distillation seems the best option.

Thanks again!