OT: Ping Frank: dried vinegar

[T]

Hi Frank,

If you would put your chemists hat on for a minute, I'd like to mooch a free question from you. Google is failing me here.

When you let distilled white vinegar dry on a wash rag (good and dry), if you re-wet the wash rag, does the vinegar come back? Or does the vinegar part boil off whilst the rag dries out? And I am just smelling the organic solids that the vinegar was made out of?

Many thanks,

-T

[Frank]

I see acetic acid has a boiling point 32 deg F above water so it will evaporate.

[T]

Thank you!

[Frank]

It takes glacial acetic acid and acetic anhydride to acetylate cotton to make cellulose acetate. Vinegar is only about 4% acetic acid and is too weak to do anything much. You're just smelling the residual vinegar. Cotton does retain moisture and would have to have absolutely dry humidity to lose it.