Antifreeze

OK, the click and clack puzzler of the day. Does antifreeze evaporate? I'm not talking about loss of anitfreeze in the cooling system. If you place a jar of antifreeze (50/50 with water) on the bench will it evaporate and if so how long will it take. Weeks, months, years??

 

Try it and get back to us in a month. LOL.

I would think the water would evaporate if its open to the atmosphere but Im not a chemistry guy.

 

X2...

 

Ethylene glycol (anti freeze)has an evaporation rate of 0.01 relative to the MSDS evaporation standard butyl acetate (which is defined as having a rating of 1.0). For comparison, mineral spirits (paint thinner) has a rating of 0.15.
So a quantity of (anti freeze)(would take 15 times as long to evaporate as a similar quantity of mineral spirts, i.e.

Sooo... in engrish this means alcohol which evaporates as you watch it, is 15 times the speed of evaporation as anti freeze, for same amount of fluid.

Not that you really wanted to know right??

 

Naw... you can do it. If you want. I would rather watch wallpaper peel while sitting in a comfy chair drinking a cold glass of Coke!

 

antifreeze if quite hygroscopic so it will not let go of the water very readily!

 

True, but it will evaporate. I was Chemical engineering minor in college.. and found the study of chemical engineering to be quite dry and boring, so I switched to computer engineering and majored in that instead.

Now, heck I would rather not think that hard all day everyday, makes life miserable, IMHO!

 

Mav71, mineral spirits is not alcohol based, short hydrocarbons. So, anti freeze evaporates 15x slower than mineral spirits (which evaporates slowly). Alcohol, such as ethanol evaporates rather quickly.

So here is the rest of the story. Last fall I spilled some antifreeze on the intake manifold while refilling the cooling system. I have an Edelbrock Air Gap. This spring I found antifreeze dripping off the back of the trans bell housing. So, where does something like that come from? I have no heater hoses so that is not the source. Then, I realized if the antifreeze sitting in the Air Gap didn't evaporate it could have trickeled down the back when I jacked the car up! Otherwise, I have no explanation!!

 

I was a bit drunk while writing that.... so thanks for the correction.
Remind me not to drink and type on here...due to the fact there is 1 person who actually read what I wrote and felt the need to point out my mistake that is..
I hated , that field of study, so I wouldn't of even wrote it if I was sober..