ORIGINAL: Diesel Die-hard
<div style=''text-align: justify''>Thanks for the response, Ray! I understand the theory behind your very logical suggestion, but am wondering about the effect of volaitilty of the other components. Surely substances like heptane and naphtha are also volatile to some extent? Any volume reduction due to evaporation of those components would be attributed to ether and would thus inflate the either content measured by this approach. Any comment on this?
Cheers,
Adrian</div>
Yes point taken. Ether is extremely volatile so perhaps a much shorter time span between measurements? The method is only suitable for rough approximations at best. There are other similar techniques such as deliberately boiling off the volatiles at their individual BP. Ether boils at 34.6 C, Heptane at 98.4 C but the naphtha is the spoiler because it's a soup of hydro-carbons and ranges between 35 to 200 C. Holdimg a temperature of 34.6 and not going over 35 is a difficult thing to do with a water bath.
One solution may be to ring the company, ask to speak to a chemist in the technical support section, and explain your problem. Worked for me once with a problem with some local kero.
Ray