Dichloromethane Extraction - Distillation of Methylene Chloride from Paint Stripper

Dichloromethane (DCM) has a wide range of uses in the amateur laboratory. Also called Methylene Chloride, it is mainly used as a solvent in paint strippers but also in pharmaceuticals and food industries.
Today we extract some DCM from paint stripper (paint remover) gel. This is done by simply distilling the gel in a water bath at a temperature between 40 and 50 C°. This only works with paint strippers which labels state "Dichloromethane" or "Methylene Chloride" or "Chlorinated Solvent" as an ingredient, which in this case is the main active ingredient of your paint stripper.

• Cool water must be running through the condenser column
• The receiving flask should be in an ice bath
• Proper ventilation must be provided
• The storage of DCM should be in a cold environment, ideally in a lab fridge. Since we don't have one and it is summertime in Brazil (as the background noise confirms), we build an improvised "pressure relief valve" out of a pipette bottle cap and a layer of plastic wrap


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